


A Dream (That I Wanna Belong In)

by tartanroyaltea



Series: The Ties that Bind [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Feels, Bucky Barnes Feels, Darcy Lewis-centric, F/M, I Made Myself Cry, Multiple Dimensions, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Science Nerd Bucky Barnes, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-04-04 20:14:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 44,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14027904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tartanroyaltea/pseuds/tartanroyaltea
Summary: Darcy always knew this moment would come- one of Jane's wacky experiments was bound to malfunction at some point, andof courseDarcy was going to be the victim.Arriving in a parallel universe where everything is wrong, Darcy is desperate to return to 'her' world.Until she meets one Bucky Barnes, who claims she's his 'soulmate'...whateverthatmeans!





	1. Part The First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A while ago I toyed with the idea of a Darcy/Bucky fic that included daemons from the incredible _His Dark Materials_ series by Philip Pullman, and while re-reading the series a couple of weeks back I got hit with this plot bunny.
> 
> Of course, it's also a soulmate AU. Because I have an unhealthy obsession.
> 
> Title taken from Rita Ora _Anywhere_. The song is just okay, but I loved the line: 'You're painting me a dream that I wanna belong in.'

Darcy always knew that this moment would come. She’d had a vague vision of it the day that she first met Jane- the frazzled little scientist had been running around her make-shift lab/pigsty in Puente Antiguo, excitedly babbling about things Darcy had zero understanding of, while various steampunk machines whirred and spluttered with multi-coloured lights all around the room. It was a total trip, and so far outside Darcy’s usual comfort zone of boring college lectures and Netflix marathons that she immediately jumped aboard the Good Ship Jane Foster.

The arrival of Thor, as in a dude from another frickin’ dimension, was just another sign on the stop to crazyville, or that reality where Darcy was, at some point, going to become involved in some serious shit herself.

When Selvig was mind-enslaved by Loki the God of Zero-Chill, Darcy couldn’t help but feel a little shiver run up her spine. One of their little trio had been messed with in a serious way by the Universe.

Jane’s disappearing act in London had scared the bajeebus out of Darcy, and the freaky elf-dudes who started popping up everywhere certainly hadn’t helped calm her down. Obviously, she’d been freaked because her BFF and boss had literally _vanished_ and been possessed by some ancient alien power, but what really disturbed Darcy was the fact that the odds were now completely against her. Both Selvig and Jane had been fucked with, and Darcy _knew_ in her bones that it was going to be her turn next.

Pippen told her she was crazy. Darcy had heard it from him like a bajillion times, but it still bugged her that her own _dæmon_ thought she was being a paranoid nut-job. He was supposed to be on her side.

Of course, when she said that, he’d just tilt his head, attempt to cross his front paws and swish his long tail in a really offensive way. Darcy didn’t doubt that if Pip had eyebrows, he’d be raising them at her, too.

Pippen was a hazel dormouse, and Darcy loved him for it. Sure, it had been fun (sometimes embarrassing) during her childhood when he could turn into a fearsome bulldog when she got angry, or that he could turn into a seagull and ride the wind currents when they went to the beach, but when he’d settled into his final form as a dormouse, Darcy had been delighted. Most people wanted a showy dæmon, something like Black Widow’s snow leopard, or a lion, like Captain America’s- something scary and impressive.

Darcy personally loved that Pip was small enough to fit in her shirt pocket, that he was super soft and fluffy, and that he enjoyed sleeping even more than she did. Sometimes he got a little high strung and twitchy, but mostly he was a good one. Besides, large dæmons were a nightmare when you had to use public transport- imagine buying a separate plane seat for your big cat companion? Imagine if your dæmon was a water buffalo? Really, what the hell would you do? Not to mention, it was more difficult for any pervert on the street to ‘accidentally’ touch Pip. Darcy had seen far too many women being violated on the subway when strange men purposefully brushed up against their dæmons.

Pip shuddered at the mere thought, and so did Darcy. No one had ever touched Pippen, and she didn’t plan on that changing any time soon.

But to get back to the clusterfuck at hand-

Darcy had no idea where she was.

One minute, she’s staring stupidly at Jane and the smouldering machine that was emitting an alarming beam of red light that _burned_ when it touched Darcy-

She collapsed after that, or she thought so, anyway.

That was really the only explanation for the pristine white ceiling and ugly as hell light fitting she was currently staring at.

A stern face suddenly entered her field of vision, a woman with flat brown eyes and flat brown hair scraped back in a utilitarian bun. She didn’t have a scrap of makeup on but her skin was _flawless._

“Don’t tell me you’re a habitual fainter, Lewis,” the woman said tersely. Darcy wished she knew who this strange woman was.

In her shirt pocket, Pippen quivered uncontrollably. He wasn’t liking this either.

Darcy’s tongue felt heavy and furry, the way it always did after a Tequila Tuesday binge.

She swallowed, trying to get some moisture in her throat. “Um, no. I don’t know what just happened, sorry.”

The woman nodded, no hint of a smile on her mouth. “Feel any pain? You went down pretty hard, but I don’t think you hit your head.”

“I feel fine,” Darcy replied, trying to clench her abdominals and sit up. She didn’t really have abdominals, given her strong aversion to exercise, so it was a total fail.

The woman didn’t look convinced. She lifted the cuff of her dark blue sportswear top to her mouth. “This is Hill, I need a medic on floor 1, subsection C. Over.”

“Roger. Cho ETA thirty seconds.”

Darcy just went back to staring at the ceiling, because the whole scenario was beginning to freak her out.

“Don’t move. You might have a concussion,” Hill said, laying a hand on Darcy’s shoulder and pushing her back with surprising gentleness.

“I feel fine,” Darcy repeated, because she still had no idea what the hell was going on. Hill’s business-like manner and the comm in her ear made Darcy pause, though.

It reminded her of the iPod thieves.

SHIELD.

Footsteps squeaked loudly on the floor just before another face entered Darcy’s field of vision. An unfairly beautiful woman- Cho, Darcy assumed- was peering down at her with concern.

“Hello, I’m Dr Cho.”

Darcy tried to muster up a smile in response to the Doctor’s. “Darcy Lewis.”

“Lewis is my new assistant. I was just giving her the tour when she collapsed. I don’t think she hit her head, but I can’t be sure.”

Dr Cho nodded, her large dark eyes filled with compassion. “Do you feel any pain in your head, Darcy?”

“No.”

“Any dizziness? Confusion?”

“Nope.” Okay, that was a lie. She was _very_ confused.

“Any problems with your vision?”

Darcy managed a feeble chuckle. “No more than normal.”

Cho produced a little silver pen from her coat pocket. “I’m just going to check your pupillary responses, okay?”

“Go for it,” Darcy replied, as Cho carefully removed her glasses and shone the light in each of her eyes.

“Responding normally.” Cho replaced her glasses.

“Before we try to get you vertical again” –Here she smiled. Darcy saw a new friend in the making- “Do you feel discomfort anywhere else?”

Darcy considered for a moment. “My back hurts quite a bit. Think I might’ve pulled something.”

Cho’s brow wrinkled. “That is concerning. I’ll have Charlie, my assistant bring up a rolling bed, and then we can check you over with the scanner. It won’t take more than ten minutes,” she assured Hill.

“No rush. Lewis just moved on base this morning. Plenty of time for me to brief her later,” Hill said crisply. “Lewis, I’ll leave you with Dr Cho and her team. If you’re cleared, we’ll reschedule the tour for 0900 hours tomorrow.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” Darcy replied, having no idea how to address the woman. Going by Hill’s sharp nod as she departed, ‘Boss’ was just fine.

“Not the ideal first day,” Dr Cho noted, smiling slightly. She had knelt beside Darcy, so they could speak properly. Darcy really liked her. She wasn’t like any Doctor Darcy had ever met before.

“I’m making quite the spectacle of myself,” Darcy agreed drily. Her tone was nonchalant, but inside she was freaking out. Pip’s heartbeat was fluttering violently against her ribcage, his teeny body trembling. Darcy was concerned that someone would notice and ask why she had a mouse in her pocket, because when Hill had walked away, she realised something.

Neither Cho or Hill had dæmons. Sure, they could’ve been tiny like Pip, hiding in a discreet pocket, but Darcy knew, _knew_ in her gut that the reason she couldn’t see their dæmons was because they didn’t have any. She thought she might be sick.

You heard stories about people without dæmons, but it was only fairy tales. No one could live without a dæmon- you were just a shell, a vegetable without them. What kind of fucked up medical-military unit was this, and why was she here, apparently working as Hill’s assistant?

Cho misinterpreted her distress. “The scanner is completely pain free, Darcy. I promise. Here’s Charlie now, here we go…”

Darcy blacked out again.

 

*****

 

When she woke up, she was staring at another white ceiling. This one was bigger though, like an actual room instead of a corridor. An arch-like scanner was hovering over her abdomen, a beam of purple light sliding back and forth as Dr Cho watched a screen on the other side of the room. It was providing insanely detailed images of her internal organs and bone structure. Darcy had never seen anything like it, and she’d had a CT scan once as a kid.

The light was getting dangerously close to where Pip was still curled up in her pocket. Cho hadn’t removed a stitch of her clothing, which by itself told Darcy that the tech here wasn’t that of your normal hospital.

“Stop!” She croaked. Cho immediately signalled to one of her assistants, and the scanner paused.

“Darcy, are you alright? The scan isn’t complete.”

Darcy scrunched her eyes up. How the hell was she going to explain this?

“Look, I…you’re going to think I’m crazy, but there’s a mouse in my pocket.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop. Several miles away.

“A…mouse? In your pocket?” Cho repeated slowly. She looked as though she couldn’t decide if Darcy was joking or not.

“Yeah, it’s my…pet. My pet mouse, and it was sick this morning, so I brought it with me while Hill was showing me around, but you can’t scan it. It might hurt him!”

Cho still looked baffled. “Um…I’ve spotted a contusion on your spinal column already, and I want to check for more. I really think a full scan is necessary-”

“I totally agree Doc,” Darcy laughed, slightly strained. “But I just need to get him out of my pocket, okay?”

Cho glanced at her assistants, who all just shrugged. Darcy was pretty impressed that they were so chill.

“Pip, here,” Darcy murmured, reaching a hand into her pocket and gently drawing Pip out on her index finger. His little paws clung to her tenaciously, and his beady black eyes watched her warily. He was as distressed by all this as she was, of course. “Stay out of the way for a minute, okay?” She tried to keep her voice as quiet as possible, but there was really no way that these people weren’t going to think she was crazy.

Pip blinked at her for a second before leaping off her finger like a gymnast, landing nimbly on the lab floor and scurrying to a safe corner.

“Okay, have at it, Doc.”

Five minutes later, and Darcy was in a proper medbay, floating on a cloud of potent muscle relaxers. Cho was confident that her machine had corrected the damage, but she wanted to keep an eye on Darcy for a few hours, to be on the safe side.

The second the door shut behind the Doctor, Pip was out of Darcy’s pocket and crouching over her sternum, his face so close that his whiskers were tickling her chin.

“Darcy! What’s happening!” He whispered, frantic.

Darcy felt panic well up in her throat. “I don’t know, Pip! I think it was Jane’s machine- I remember it malfunctioning, and some red beam of light hitting me. Hitting us!”

Pip’s tail swished back and forth with agitation. He’d only just woken up as Darcy ran into the lab, ears ringing with the shrill sound of alarms, so he’d missed everything.

He nuzzled into her throat. The warmth of his small body immediately soothed her.

“Did you see…?”

His voice was so quiet that she strained to hear it. She felt that queasy wave in her stomach again.

“Yeah. No dæmons,” she said, hollowly.

“What’s wrong with them?” Pip asked, sounding both horrified and genuinely concerned. His tail unfurled around her neck. He was even more upset about this than she was.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think they’re…zombies?” Zombies were humans without dæmons. They only existed in myths and horror stories, sometimes in the _National Enquirer._

Darcy frowned. “I don’t think so. They seemed…surprised that you were with me. Like they didn’t even know what a dæmon was.” What she didn’t voice was that all of them seemed fine in spite of their dæmon-less state.

“What if this is an alternate universe? And they don’t _have_ dæmons here?” Pip said, being the braver of the two. Darcy bit her lip. She didn’t know what was a scarier prospect- that Hill, Cho et al didn’t know what dæmons were, or that they’d had theirs removed.

Both scenarios were pretty fucking terrifying. Pip whimpered against her neck. Darcy lifted a hand to gently stroke his back. “It doesn’t matter. We’re together, and nothing’s going to change that, okay?”

He pushed his cold nose against her pulse. “We need to know where we are,” he whispered.

Darcy nodded. Hill had spoken with an American accent, as had Cho, although with a certain…lilt that made Darcy suspect English wasn’t her first language. Cho’s team had all spoken English with American accents, but really, they could be anywhere.

“Should we ask about Jane?” Pip had a point: Jane was a nobel-prizing winning scientist, and Cho was clearly at the head of a very advanced medical facility. She was bound to know about Jane.

“What if this _is_ another ‘verse, and Jane isn’t famous here?” Darcy asked, horrified by the turn her own mind had taken. That was a path of ‘what if’ that she really couldn’t stand to walk down just yet.

Pip didn’t say anything for a long time. Darcy thought he’d fallen asleep. The muscle relaxers were starting to get to her, too.

“We have to start somewhere,” he mumbled, with a yawn.

Darcy agreed. She’d ask Cho about Jane.

But not right now.

 

*****

 

Darcy kept her eyes closed when she woke up again, praying and hoping and wishing that she’d be in her bed. Her bed in the flat that she shared with Jane in Oxford.

She almost wept when she opened her eyes to that blank white ceiling again.

One of Pip’s paws touched her jaw. “Dr Cho was in a few minutes ago. You need to call her back!”

Swallowing back her tears, Darcy fumbled for the call button beside her bed.

Pip slipped out of sight as the door opened, and Dr Cho approached the bed with a smile.

“Hi Darcy, how are you feeling?”

“Very rested,” Darcy managed.

“Good. You slept for about six hours. I think we can maybe see about getting you to sit up, okay?” When Darcy nodded, Cho reached for the bed-adjusting remote, and slowly raised the bed until it was at a decent angle. “Feeling okay?”

Darcy nodded. Her back honestly felt as good as new. She gripped one of the bars beside the bed and carefully pulled herself up completely.

“You do good work, Doc. Thanks,” she said, managing a small amount of humour. Cho looked very pleased.

“You’re very welcome, Darcy. I’ll get you some light painkillers in case you experience any stiffness in the morning, but I don’t expect you’ll need them,” Cho said, lowering the side of the bed so that Darcy could swing her legs around and set her feet on the floor. For the first time, Darcy realised she was wearing dark slacks and serious work shoes. It was a far cry from her usual work attire- ripped jeans, ancient flannel shirt, and Chucks.

Before she stood up, Darcy looked over at Dr Cho. “Can I ask you something?”

Cho looked curious. “Of course.”

“Do you know Dr Jane Foster?”

Cho’s eyes lit up. “Yes I do! Are you a fan as well?”

Darcy blinked. “Um, no. We’re friends.”

An expression of longing suddenly appeared on Cho’s face.

“Oh my goodness! I would love to meet her. I did hear through the grapevine that she’d be visiting the facility later this month-” Cho suddenly broke off, looking bashful. “Perhaps you would introduce us? I’ve read every _page_ of her work. She’s truly phenomenal.”

Darcy nodded, relieved that Jane sounded like…well, Jane. Astro-physicist extraordinaire.

“Will do, Doc.”

Cho grinned. Darcy hesitantly got to her feet, swaying for just a second as she rediscovered her balance. As a matter of course, she patted her back pocket.

Her heart sunk, again. No phone.

“Um, you wouldn’t know where my phone is, would you?”

Cho just smiled again. “Oh, I imagine Agent Hill didn’t get a chance to give you your Starkphone, just yet. I know it’s ridiculous, but the twenty minutes between when I gave up my old phone and got my new one, I felt completely lost! I’m one of those sad people who can’t live without their phone,” she said, with a deprecating shrug.

“Me too,” Darcy managed, with a shaky laugh. _Agent, she said Agent Hill. Oh shit, what is this place? And what’s a ‘Starkphone’? Does Stark Industries make phones now?_

Pippen shifted irritably in her pocket.

“Um… sorry, but this place is like a maze. Do you think someone could direct me back to my room?”

 

*****

 

Her room wasn’t thrilling, but at least she wasn’t sharing with anyone else. It looked a bit like a room in ‘halls’ at Oxford. Plain and simple. She had a modest wardrobe, a chest of drawers, and a small double bed with one side table. Her window looked out on a running track, which gave both her and Pip a giggle. That was the most they’d ever be seeing of _that_. The small wet room tucked in the corner was such a relief. Communal showers had been stressful enough in college without the added difficulty of having to hide one’s dæmon.

There was a hold all bag and two decent-sized boxes on the floor. Darcy recognised her own handwriting on the boxes, and it freaked her out.

This wasn’t her world, and yet she was _here._ Not just right this second, but she had been here. She had moved here to become Hill’s assistant. Why wasn’t she with Jane? What had happened in her life? It was eerie, like being in a dead person’s room with all their belongings, except _she_ was the dead person.

Pip jumped onto her shoulder. “Will you calm down for just five minutes? My heart can’t take any more of this,” he said, sitting on his hind legs and flapping his forepaws for emphasis. Darcy’s Mom had often remarked that she didn’t know who’d taught sarcasm to whom, but they were both dynamite.

Darcy wondered what her Mom was doing.

She sat down on the bed with a thump.

“Pip, what are we going to do?” She said, unable to hold back the ball of anxiety that was bouncing around her stomach. It was a miracle she hadn’t been sick.

“We need more information. Where are we? Why are we here? Can we get in contact with Jane and see if she can send us back?”

Darcy bit back a sob. “Jane sent us here by _accident,_ I don’t think she- or this version of _her-_ is going to know how to get us back.”

Pip poked her shoulder with a paw. “Don’t be so negative. It sounds like this Jane is a world-renowned genius, just like our Jane. She’s still our best shot.”

Darcy had to agree, but the whole thing wasn’t exactly comforting. If she couldn’t find a way to contact Jane, they’d have to wait until she arrived at the facility in two weeks’ time! Two weeks, stuck here! Doing god knows what!

“Pip, I’m scared,” she whispered, staring out the window. The sky was dark and thundery. She had no idea which country they were even in. The forest beyond the running track didn’t look particularly tropical or unusual, but who could say?

“Me too,” he murmured.

There was a sharp knock of ‘Shave and a Haircut’ on her door, and Pip dove into her shirt pocket with a theatrical sigh.

“Hush, you,” Darcy chided with a quiet giggle as she went to open the door.

Captain America was standing there.

Outside her door. Wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt that was about three sizes too small.

It was a lot of manly physique for a gal to take in.

“Um, hi.”

“Darcy Lewis?” He asked, voice strong and direct. Darcy nodded, totally dumbfounded.

“I’m Steve Rogers.” He extended a hand for her to shake. He was really hot-like, literally, his skin was hot to the touch.

“What can I do for you, Captain Rogers?”

He smiled, suddenly bashful. “Please, call me Steve.”

“What can I do for you, Steve?” She responded, trying to sound friendly instead of freaked out.

If Steve noticed any weirdness, he was doing a stellar job at acting normal.

“We’ll be liaising on a lot of missions in the future, so I thought I’d introduce myself now. I know settling into a big team like this can be intimidating, but Hill thinks you’re the right woman for the job, and that’s a hell of a recommendation.”

Darcy smiled, nodding slowly. He was _exactly_ how he seemed in the propaganda shoots. He made you feel _powerful._ It was bizarre.

If only she knew what the job he was referring to actually entailed. The title ‘Hill’s assistant’ didn’t really explain too much when Darcy had no idea what exactly Hill’s role was.

“I hope I don’t disappoint,” she settled for. Vague, yet earnest.

“I’m sure you won’t. Anyway, I’ll leave you to get settled in. I’m sure I’ll see you in the command room, soon. Hill plans to throw you in at the deep end,” he said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Darcy couldn’t hide her grimace, which just made Steve chuckle. “Oh goodie.”

Steve waved a hand. “I don’t think you’ll sink, Ms Lewis.”

“Darcy,” she corrected. Being called ‘Ms Lewis’ gave her horrid flashbacks to those few classes she’d taken as a postgrad teaching assistant. They still gave her nightmares.

Steve flashed her a megawatt grin. “Welcome to the team, Darcy. You need anything, just shout.” Instead of waltzing away, he waited and looked at her expectantly.

“Uh, actually. Could you tell me where to get some dinner? I’m starving.” As if to underline her point, her stomach gurgled loudly.

Steve nodded, highly amused. “Down that corridor, take the second left, down two flights of stairs, then first right. Dinner’s usually on the go from five to eight,” he explained. When he lifted his right arm to gesture down the long corridor, Darcy noticed a silvery tattoo on his inner forearm. It was a long line of script, but she couldn’t make it out from that distance. She’d never known about Captain America having a tattoo. Maybe this was an alternate, edgy Cap. Although, apart from the tattoo, he didn’t look any different than the Cap from ‘her’ ‘verse.

“Thanks, you’re a life saver.”

They said their goodbyes, and Steve jogged away. Literally, _jogged_ , like there was a battery pack on his back and he just couldn’t stay still.

She suspected she’d see him running laps on the track pretty frequently.

“This is so weird,” Pip whispered from her pocket. She was working in Captain America’s ‘team’, under a woman called ‘Agent Hill.’

Definitely weird.

 

*****

 

Dinner was a hurried affair in the large canteen. The place was practically deserted, which wasn’t surprising given that she’d only finished eating just before 8pm. Maybe the place was livelier early on.

Picking through ‘her’ belongings seemed like a daunting task until she realised her fashion sense (or lack thereof) was the exact same in this dimension. Just as well, because the only garment she had brought from ‘her’ world was the necklace that she always wore: a small gold key on a fine gold chain.

“Oh, great. _Another_ flannel shirt,” piped Pippen from his position on her window sill. Darcy stuck her tongue out at him. He hated when she did that, because he couldn’t stretch his tongue past his teeth far enough. He just twitched the end of his tail, instead.

“Don’t kid yourself, Pip. You love my flannel shirts. See? So soft,” she joked, stroking the green fabric and holding it out for Pip to rub against his whiskers.

“It smells like you,” he noted, a bit surprised.

“Well, it technically is mine.”

Pip huffed. “That stuff you’re wearing doesn’t smell like you.”

Darcy hadn’t bothered changing out of her shirt and slacks before dinner. She was definitely going to be breaking in the shower tonight, though. Fainting fits and inter-dimensional travel made her feel grubby.

“Maybe they’re new clothes, you know? For a new job?” Darcy could understand why someone would do that; it was a sort of ritual, starting over afresh. She imagined that people without dæmons needed rituals and little myths to keep themselves going, especially when it came to moving and taking up a new job. Darcy couldn’t have survived her big move to college without Pip- it had been scary and lonely, at first, but having someone you can always talk to was the best comfort you could ask for.

Darcy sorted out ‘her’ clothes and accoutrements (thank _God_ there were books to read, because there certainly wasn’t any tech), but when she saw Pip yawning fit to break his jaw, she hustled into the washroom and got ready for bed in record time.

She shut the drapes, pausing for a second to look askance at the lone runner doing laps in the dark. They hadn’t even bothered to put on the floodlights, instead letting the moonlight guide them.

Sporty people were weird.

Darcy curled up in the strange bed, Pip tucked into a tight ball on her collarbones as always, and drifted to sleep while reading _Little Women._

 

*****

 

She woke up at the ass-crack of dawn to the sad realisation that her bedroom window was in direct line of the rising sun, and the curtains weren’t doing a great job of blocking it.

Pip was muttering in his sleep as she scooped him up and rolled out of bed, flicking the useless curtains open to greet the new day.

And what a pleasant day it was, because there, running in the pale morning sunbeams was none other than real life beefcake Steve Rogers.

Maybe being awoken early every morning wasn’t such a tragedy, after all.

“Why’re you awake?” Pip slurred, indignantly. Pip didn’t do mornings. Or afternoons, really. Actually, he just preferred to sleep for most of the day, if he could get away with it.

“Sun woke me up,” she murmured, watching Cap pound the track outside. He made running look so effortless, almost enjoyable. If high school had taught Darcy anything it was that running was stressful, sweaty, and tended to involve at least two sports bras straining to contain her over-abundant chest.

She was a keen spectator, though. If the Cap wanted to start doing some press-ups and squats out there, she’d be more than happy to keep count for him.

“You’re a pervert,” Pip tisked, noticing who she was drooling over.

“Shut up, Pip. The guy’s a fucking Adonis.”

Pippen rolled his eyes. “I’ll take your word for it. I’m going back to sleep.” He wriggled out of her hand and leapt back onto the bed, darting underneath the pillow and hunkering down for another few hours. Darcy thought he was getting lazier as she got older, which was a bit concerning. At this rate he’d be comatose 24/7 by the time she was forty.

After brushing her teeth and dressing in a similar outfit to the one she’d woken up wearing yesterday, Darcy would’ve killed for her cellphone. Or her laptop. Or her tablet.

She needed technology. She needed the internet. Mostly, she needed something to occupy her mind, because it was back to whirling and twisting like a dervish.

When Pip finally decided he’d had enough beauty sleep, they headed down to breakfast. The dining room was twice as busy as it had been the previous evening, and Darcy felt many a gaze directed at her as she made her way to an empty table in a far corner. Clearly everyone was eager to have a look at the new girl.

Sensing her anxiety, Pip shifted about in her pocket, peeping his little nose out for a moment in order to tell her to relax and eat up.

Easy for him to say. No one was giving him curious side-eye.

After polishing off her cereal, Darcy realised with despair that she had no idea where to find Hill. Wandering around and hoping for the best would’ve been her usual plan, but it was already ten minutes to nine, and from what she’d seen out her bedroom window, the complex was sprawling, and much of it was underground.

A slightly wary science-type, accosted outside the canteen, pointed her in the right direction. She knocked on Hill’s office door just as the clock chimed.

“Lewis, how are you feeling?” Darcy didn’t think Hill was rude, per say, but she had a naturally brusque way about her that made Darcy suspect that her boss was not usually one for pleasantries.

“Good, thanks. Cho fixed me up.”

“Glad to hear it.” Hill didn’t invite her to sit down. Instead, she lifted a small white box and handed it to Darcy.

“Starkphone,” Hill explained, “All of the data from your old phone has been transferred. You also have myself, Stark and Rogers on speed dial. The phone is equipped with a tracker, and a panic function. You can programme it later. Let’s finish the tour.”

With that, they were off. Darcy was relieved that she didn’t feel faint, because Hill certainly wasn’t taking it easy on her. From the way she described everything, Darcy could tell that her boss was expecting her to remember it, which was unfortunate because Darcy was one of those people who always succeeded in getting lost even with a detailed map under their nose.

“The facility has three gyms. Two are open to all personnel. This one is for Avengers and handlers only,” Hill said, before pushing open the double doors. Darcy could hear the sound of punches landing, and the sound of men’s voices echoing in the large space.

Hill marched confidently into the room, manoeuvring through the many, many stacks of weights and rows of supped-up treadmills. Darcy followed behind her reluctantly as Hill approached the men sparring in the boxing ring at the centre of the huge room.

“Captain, do you have a minute?”

As soon as Hill’s voice registered, the two men stopped. Considering the speed at which they’d been kicking, punching, and avoiding before that, it was genuinely bizarre to witness. Like someone had pressed pause on a TV, but in real life.

Pip giggled softly, and Darcy glanced down to see him peering out over the edge of her pocket. She gave him a little poke on the head, trying to prevent either of the men from seeing him. She knew Captain America had above-average eyesight, and she didn’t fancy explaining Pip to the present company.

“Hill, what can I do for you?” Steve asked, deftly ducking under one of the ropes and reaching for a water bottle on the floor. The dark-haired man behind him followed slowly, almost wary.

“This is my new assistant, Darcy Lewis. I wanted to introduce you.”

Steve chuckled lightly, nodding to Darcy. “We’ve already met.”

Hill turned to look at Darcy with a slightly raised eyebrow.

“Hi,” Darcy said, waving at Steve.

The dark haired man had edged around Steve, and looked as though he were contemplating making a break for the locker room.

“Oh!” Steve exclaimed, as if he’d only just remembered his buddy was behind him. “Darcy, this is Sergeant James Barnes. My best friend.” The way Steve said that, so proudly and confidently made Darcy grin. She’d read a hella amount about Captain America and his Howling Commandos; his friendship with Bucky Barnes was legendary in her world, and it was nice to see that it hadn’t changed, here.

Sadly, what also hadn’t changed was the fact that Barnes had, at some point, been the Winter Soldier. The gleaming silver arm adorned with the sinister red star was identical to the one she’d seen on the masked assassin who had stalked Cap and Black Widow on the streets of DC two years prior. Darcy’s connections to the hacker community had given her additional access to SHIELD/HYDRA’s files, so she knew more about the Winter Soldier than the general public.

Despite the hideous things that had been done to him, Bucky Barnes was still an absolutely gorgeous man. The scruff lining his jaw was ridiculously attractive, and a few strands of hair had escaped from his messy bun, falling into his stunning pale blue eyes which were drinking her in from his place next to Steve. She didn’t think many men could match Cap for shoulder-breadth and sheer musculature, but Barnes certainly did.

She may have blushed. Just a smidge.

“Please, call me Bucky. Only person who ever called me James was my Ma when she was in a lather,” Bucky said, managing to muster up a charming smile for her.

“Then I promise I’ll only call you ‘James’ if you’re in trouble,” she joked, laughing.

Bucky’s eyes widened, his breath stuttering in his chest. Worried that she’d done something to trigger the Winter Soldier, Darcy looked to Hill and Steve for guidance.

Hill looked mildly bored, but Steve…Steve’s mouth was literally hanging open.

“You…oh my god. It’s _you_ ,” Bucky babbled, taking a step towards her. His eyes were flitting over her rapidly, cataloguing everything as if he couldn’t believe she was standing in front of him.

Darcy took a nervous step back before she could stop herself. She wasn’t really afraid of him, but he was a big guy, and there was a bit of a manic look in his eye as he approached her.

“I told you, didn’t I, Buck?” Steve sounded so happy. Darcy still had no idea what was going on.

Bucky turned his right arm around, showing off the tender skin of his inner forearm…where the words she’d just spoken were inked in shimmering silver.

_What the fuck?_

“Lewis, you’re certainly full of surprises,” Hill noted drily, but with a glint of interest in her eyes. Darcy didn’t much like it.

“Uh…” How was her handwriting on Bucky Barnes’ arm? How?! Was it some kind of weird magic trick? Did the Winter Soldier do magic, now?

“Look, Lewis, I’ve shown you your office and the main sites. If you have any other questions, we’ll discuss at the 4pm info brief. I’ve got a tele-meeting with Stark in ten, and I can’t be late,” Hill stated briskly, before turning and striding out of the gym without a backward glance.

Darcy was left with two heart-eyed super soldiers staring at her.

It should’ve been the most glorious moment of her life, but it was decidedly…odd.

“Um…sorry, what’s going on?” Her lips trembled, but she managed to hike a smile into place.

Bucky Barnes wasn’t deterred. His smile only widened, revealing  flawlessly white teeth and a hitherto unknown dimple in his left cheek.

_Thor help me._

“You’re my soulmate,” Bucky explained, his voice brimming with relief, and joy, and _reverence._

Confusion must have shown on her face, because Bucky’s smile dimmed. Steve was frowning, his eyes darting between her and his BFF.

“You said my words…” Bucky said slowly, watching her keenly for a reaction.

Darcy nodded, shrugging and grimacing. “Ah…okay?”

Bucky’s face twisted with anguish. “Did…did I not say yours?” His voice was hushed and terrified, as if the answer to that question could only be heartbreaking.

Darcy glanced down at the text on his arm again, then at the iridescent gleam of the words she’d seen on Steve’s arm the night before. Maybe they weren’t tattoos after all. Whatever they were, they clearly meant a great deal to Bucky.

And then it clicked. This was obviously something unique to this ‘verse. No one here had dæmons (the thought still didn’t sit right with Darcy, nor Pip), but apparently they had these…fancy iridescent tattoos of something a person said to you when you first met.

What a lousy trade off.

Bucky’s expression had completely shut off, almost chilling in its blankness. “I knew it,” he murmured hollowly, before turning and walking out of the gym. Steve tried to stop him, but Bucky’s metal arm whirred threateningly, and the Cap let him go.

“I…what just happened?” Bucky’s behaviour was volatile, to say the least.

Steve looked back at her, smiling in spite of the tense lines around his eyes. “Buck’s been worked up over his soulmark for the past few months. He figured HYDRA might’ve messed with it.” Here he looked at Darcy shrewdly. “I suppose it was just a false alarm, although his words are very specific…” Steve shook his head. “I’d better go check on him. See you later, Darcy.”

“Bye, Steve.”

Darcy found herself alone in the huge gym.

Well, almost alone.

“What in the name of Hela was _that_ about?” Pip hissed, hanging half out of her pocket. Darcy couldn’t understand why she felt so…guilty, for upsetting Bucky like that. She barely even knew the guy, and she had no idea what she’d even done to make him so sad.

“I don’t know. There’s obviously something about those words people have on their arms…” Darcy mused. She needed to do some research.

Good thing she’d just received her Starkphone.

"Let's get to work, Pip." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the medical and multiverse stuff is complete mumbo jumbo, sorry :)
> 
> Any avid readers of _His Dark Materials_ will see that I've changed a few rules re: daemons. Specifically, I don't really think that Darcy's daemon would be a dormouse, if one is working off the premise that daemons physically mimic a person's inner self. But for obvious reasons, I needed her to have a tiny daemon here, plus dormice are cute and sleepy, which is a nod to my head canon of Darcy as a serial napper, especially when she was in college.  
>  In an ideal world (or fic!) what form would you expect Darcy's daemon to take? Or what would your own daemon be? I think mine would be a big fluffy cat, maybe a Persian. I've been compared to an aloof cat more than once by friends and acquaintances, but I take it as a compliment!
> 
> This fic honestly wrote itself, I've never managed to churn out 40k words in one month before! Let me know what you think, part 2 will be up in a week :)


	2. Part The Second

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note to clear up any confusion re: 'verses. Our heroine here, Darcy from 'daemonland', lives in a world that is completely canon for the MCU (up to _CA:CW_ ), but with the addition of daemons. Soulmark Bucky lives in a world that is very similar to MCU canon, but with some differences which will be discussed later. This fic will **only** occur between these two worlds, and there will only be one Darcy (daemon!Darcy) and one Bucky (soulmark!Bucky) throughout.
> 
> Onwards!

Bypassing lunch, Darcy holed up in her room, quickly setting up her new phone and getting to the Google homepage.

Thank Thor the tech here was the same as home.

“Soulmarks,” she muttered to herself, typing it into the search bar. A quick click over to images showed thousands of hits, a wall of people’s forearms emblazoned with iridescent text. Judging from the various languages on display, this was an internationally big deal.

Eschewing all of her college training, Darcy selected the Wikipedia entry on ‘Soulmates.’

“Pip, listen to this! Everyone here is born with this soulmark on their right forearm, and the idea is that whoever says the words is your soulmate.”

Pippen looked sceptical. “Soulmates, really?”

Darcy shrugged. “I suppose they’d look at dæmons the same way.” The Wikipedia page was pretty basic, just giving the rundown of how the marks worked. A person wouldn’t die so long as they hadn’t met their soulmate- soulmarks were habitually a huge comfort to people in conflict areas or times of crisis, because if your soulmate was still out there, Fate wasn’t finished with you yet.

A quick search through some blogs showed that soulmarks were a completely standard part of life here. Like having teeth, except soulmarks were apparently either extremely romanticised or hugely contentious. There was an entire blog dedicated to celeb couples whom the writer suspected weren’t actually soulmates, although Darcy didn’t understand how you could possibly tell that from looking. Other blogs declared themselves ‘anti-mark’; they were mostly created by people who were in deeply committed relationships with someone who wasn’t their soulmate. A couple sheepishly changed their tune after meeting their soulmate, but Darcy did think it was a bit sad that ten-year marriages could be dissolved just like that if one of the partners finally met their soulmate.

It was all very alien. Except, this was still Earth.

Darcy rolled up her right sleeve to check. Nope, definitely no soulmark.

“Do you think the ‘me’ who actually belongs to this world has a soulmark?” She asked Pip. “Also, where is ‘this world me’? Did I just take her place?” Darcy had little understanding of the concept of multiverses, in spite of Jane’s valiant attempts to educate her.

Pip looked as bamboozled as she did. “Search dæmons,” he suggested.

She hadn’t expected to get any results, but there were hundreds, no _thousands_ Darcy stared at the screen in shock, clicking on a Google Books link.

Some writer had created an entire ‘fictional’ series about an alternate world where people had dæmons!

Selecting a small extract, Darcy read it aloud to Pip, whose tail began to swish anxiously.

“How could someone know all that about us unless they _had_ a dæmon?” He asked.

“It’s pretty fishy,” she admitted.

“Maybe this Pullman is from our world?” Pip suggested, voice hushed.

Darcy frowned. She supposed anything was possible. She downloaded the ebooks, grinning when the payment section was automatically filled in by her phone. Clearly there were some perks to this job.

Pip hunkered down for another nap while Darcy started in on the books. She kept an eye on the clock, fearful of being late for the 4pm meeting Hill had mentioned, but by the time she’d had enough of reading, it was only 3pm.

“Pip, let’s go for a walk,” she said, scooping up his limp little body and gently tucking him into her pocket. She tied her hair back in a ponytail, but pulled it to the side so it would disguise the bulge in her pocket. She’d never had to worry about hiding Pip before, so this was taking some adjusting. Thank Thor she hadn’t decided to chop her hair on a whim a few months back.

It was a pretty nice day outside, bright but with a fair bit of cloud cover. The grounds around the facility were lush, the perfectly manicured lawns bordered by dense forest that Darcy would never willingly enter. Instead, she skirted the perimeter, keeping the woodlands on her right so that she could survey the full sprawl of the facility. It was something else. She wished she knew where it was.

“Oh!” She fished out her Starkphone, drawing up the map function. Her little dot appeared to show her standing in a blank piece of woodland. Hm. The facility didn’t show up on satellite. That was another tick in the ‘potentially military’ category.

Expanding outwards, she discovered that the base was in upstate New York. Huh. At least it wasn’t too far from home. Her parents’ house in good old Vermont was probably only a couple of hundred miles north-east. She really should call them-

“Incoming,” Pip murmured, still half-asleep. Darcy had no idea how he did it, but he tended to have a sixth sense about the world around him (even in sleep) that she herself envied.

Sliding her phone into her back pocket, Darcy looked up to see none other than Bucky Barnes approaching her.

Because, of course he would show up to intrude on her solitude. Really what were the chances?

As Bucky grew closer, Darcy was somewhat amused that he seemed just as disgruntled at the sight of her.

“Fancied a walk along the edge of the woods, too?” She asked, when he was close enough. There might have been a smidge of accusation in her tone.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I ain’t following you,” Bucky retorted, stopping a few feet away with fire in his eyes. “I walk the perimeter a lot.”

Oh. That kind of made sense; with his history she could appreciate why security was a big deal.

Not wanting to lose face, Darcy mustered a smile. “It is nice around here. Very…outdoorsy. Not that I’d be wandering into the forest, of course.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. He’d crossed his arms during her platitudes, and it was making his biceps look unfairly enticing.

“It’s not the Forbidden Forest, y’know. Worst you’ll find in there is Barton, on occasion.”

Darcy didn’t know who Barton was, but she was tickled by Bucky’s _Harry Potter_ reference. Most grown men were too proud to admit their fondness for the series.

“Well, if you can promise there aren’t any gigantic spiders, maybe I’ll check it out some day,” she said, quite sincere. She was _not_  a fan of spiders. When the dæmon of her long-time friend, Dana, had settled into its final form of a tarantula, Darcy hadn’t been able to hang out with her without psyching herself up for hours beforehand.

Bucky relaxed his _Terminator_ stance. “No spiders. Just don’t wander off without your Starkphone. Hydra may be gone, but there’ll always people who want to target us.”

Darcy frowned. “Us?”

“Yeah. Me. Steve, Stark, Banner. Etcetera. ‘The Avengers’,” he concluded, with an eye roll that told Darcy he was not impressed by that team name. It had to be better than ‘The Howling Commandos’, though, right?

Darcy laughed. “I’m not an Avenger. Just an assistant of a regular, yet kickass agent. I don’t think the baddies would be after me.”

Bucky didn’t look the least bit amused. “You’re a prime target because you _aren’t_ enhanced, and your field training is limited.”

“You saying I’m a weak link?” Darcy was surprised how much his words had annoyed her. She was badass- in her own way!

Bucky sighed impatiently. “Is that what I said? No. I’m trying to make you realise that you’re valuable- to some people,” he said, stumbling over that last bit. Darcy heard the subtext loud and clear, though; contrary to what Steve had said about it being a ‘false alarm’, Bucky clearly still thought she was his soulmate, and he believed that that put her in extra danger.

“Well, that’s not always a bad thing,” she said, carefully. Thinking about how much she missed Jane, and her parents. She didn’t know anyone here; in fact, this conversation with Bucky was the most involved she’d had with anyone since she woke up over twenty-four hours ago.

Bucky dragged teeth over his lower lip. “Guess not,” he admitted thoughtfully.

Before they ploughed into heart-sharing territory, Darcy decided to cut the conversation off at the knees. “Okay, thanks for the warning. Enjoy your walk, or perimeter check. Whatever it is.” She walked past Bucky without a backward glance.

“I could’ve cut the tension between you two with a _knife._ A blunt knife,” Pip hissed, gleefully. He was clearly enjoying her discomfort.

“Shut up!” Darcy retorted, pushing him back into her pocket.

“You talking to yourself now?”

So apparently she hadn’t left Bucky behind after all. She whirled around to find him walking sedately towards her, hands in his pants’ pockets as if he were actually on a stroll and not carrying out an intensive security check.

“No.” Darcy didn’t really have any other explanation, though. She supposed talking to Pip _was_ like talking to herself, given that he was technically part of her.

“Sure sounded like it. You could talk to me instead, if you’d like.” Oh no. There was that charming smile again, but this time it was accompanied by a coy head tilt.

What a little shit. Using his good looks against her like that.

Darcy put her hands on her hips as Bucky drew level with her. Damn, he was tall. “I thought you said you weren’t stalking me?”

“I’m not. I’m offering you my company. There’s a big distinction there, Darcy.”

She didn’t like the way he said her name, the way she could tell that he savoured it on the tip of his tongue.

She absolutely did not like it. Not one bit.

“What about the perimeter check?”

Bucky looked thoughtful, glancing back the way she’d come.

“You see anything suspicious on your way?”

“Just you,” Darcy replied sweetly.

Bucky looked amused. “Well, you’re not wrong,” he chuckled. Darcy wasn’t sure what to do with that, so she just started walking.

Pip was shaking with laughter in her pocket. The little traitor.

“So, how’s the new job going?” Bucky asked, conversationally.

“I don’t know. I haven’t actually started it, yet.”

She saw Bucky nod out of the corner of her eye. “Hill’s tough, but fair. You’ll learn a lot from her. She’s one of the best in the business.”

“What business?”

Bucky looked confused when he realised she wasn’t joking. “Security. She’s Head of Security at Stark Industries.”

“I would’ve expected her to be at Avengers’ Tower full time,” Darcy said, hoping to lead Bucky into revealing more information.

He shrugged. “She splits her time pretty evenly. But now that we’re all staying here long term, I think she’s planning to train up a team to manage the facility full time. I’m guessing that’s where you come in.”

Darcy tried not to grimace. This job was hella serious- how on earth had she landed it?

“Guess so.”

“Hey, there’s no need to worry about it. Stark and Hill wouldn’t’ve hired you unless they thought you were right for the job.”

Bless him for trying to reassure her.

Darcy shot him a smile. “Thanks.” He smiled back.

They walked in companionable silence for a few minutes. The sun started to breach the cloud cover, and Darcy was almost relaxed and content when Bucky went and opened his big trap.

“So, you gotta fella?”

Darcy stopped dead. “What?”

“Do you have a boyfriend? Are you married?” He didn’t look the slightest bit embarrassed to be asking something so personal of someone he barely knew.

Darcy had to really work to get her mouth to stop hanging open. “I- it’s none of your business!”

Bucky smirked. “Just wanna know if I have any competition. I don’t see a ring on your finger, so that’s good.”

Someone was going to have to help Darcy lift her jaw off the ground. She had _never_ had a guy come onto her so boldly. She’d assumed that Bucky’s history, and her earlier rejection of him, would make him hesitant and shy.

Apparently not.

At a loss as to how to respond. Darcy stomped off.

Bucky’s chuckle followed her, as did the man himself. “Don’t be mad, sweetheart. I just had to ask. I’m new to this soulmate thing, too, y’know.”

Darcy sighed to herself. He really was incorrigible.

“So what made you apply for this job?” Bucky asked, clearly willing to steer the conversation into less treacherous waters.

Unfortunately, Darcy didn’t even know the answer to that simple question, because she had no idea why she was here!

“Why are you asking me this stuff?” she snapped, aware of how unfair she was being.

Bucky smiled, but there a defensive hardness in his eyes. “I want to get to know you.”

“Why? I’m just security personnel.”

There was a flash of irritation and _sheer determination_ across Bucky’s face. “You’re not just ‘security personnel’ to me, and you know it.”

“Oh _do I?_ ” Darcy replied, genuinely cheesed off at this point. Being in this clusterfuck of a world was hard enough without Bucky interrupting her quiet, personal time and trying to get a rise out of her.

Bucky’s jaw tensed. “I get it. I’m not ideal soulmate material. I don’t blame you for not wanting this to be true, but _it is._ Okay? We’re soulmates, and you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

Those provocative words were what led Darcy to stop dead and rip up the right sleeve of her shirt, showing Bucky her blank skin.

“We’re not soulmates!” She shouted, far louder than she’d intended. She glanced around, concerned that someone might’ve heard. Bucky was oblivious to everything, his glassy eyes locked on her forearm.

“I… _no._ No. I felt it,” he murmured, as much to himself as to her. His right hand came up to his chest, and Darcy suddenly felt awful for yelling at him. This obviously meant a lot to him, and she was shitting all over it.

“Look, I’m sorry, really. This is obviously a big deal for you-”

“How can you not have a mark? _Everyone_ has a soulmark,” Buck protested. He looked as horrified and disturbed as she had when she realised that no one had dæmons in this strange world.

Darcy rolled down her sleeve with a nonchalant shrug.

Bucky wasn’t one for letting things go, though. “Did…did someone _do_ something to you?” he asked, voice hushed. Darcy instinctively knew where his mind was going: Hydra. He thought they’d discovered she would be his soulmate, so they’d tampered with her soulmark.

 _If only it were that simple_ , she mused to herself.

“No. I’ve never had one.”

Bucky shook his head. “That’s impossible.”

Darcy threw her hands up in the air. “You’re impossible! What do you want me to say?”

“The truth’d be nice,” Bucky shot back, immediately. From his tone of voice, Darcy could tell that he _knew_ she was lying. Damn spy training.

Darcy huffed out a big sigh. Pip pushed a little paw against her chest, but she wasn’t sure if he was encouraging her, or warning her to keep her trap shut.

Bucky was watching her, his big blue eyes fierce and demanding and defensive all at once.

"You're going to think I'm crazy," she warned.

But Bucky was determined. "Try me."

Darcy glanced around helplessly. "I'm not from...here."

Bucky looked puzzled. "You're not from America?"

"I’m from America, just…not _this_ America. I'm not from this world."

Bucky’s eyes narrowed, searching for the lie in her words. "Gonna need a bit more info, doll."

How to summarise? "In my world, I work with my friend Jane, she’s a super-talented astro-physicist. She’s trying to figure out inter-dimensional travel. One of her machines malfunctioned and I ended up here, but I'm not _supposed_ to be here."

There was suddenly a mulish set to Bucky’s jaw. "You're my soulmate. You _are_ meant to be here. With me."

Darcy sighed. "We don't have soulmates where I come from, okay? That’s why I don't have your words!"

Bucky stammered for a few seconds before settling on an old classic: “Holy shit.”

“Yep. I feel the same,” Darcy assured him.

“That…is a lot to take in.” He scratched at the back of his neck, mind clearly working overtime.

Darcy did a double-take. “Wait. You actually _believe me?”_ Surely most people would’ve been looking at her like she had two heads after hearing that.

Bucky looked at her shrewdly. “I know you’re not lying. So either you’re delusional, or what you just said actually did happen. I’ve seen enough shit to believe just about anything at this point.”

Darcy thought that was a fair comment.

“Besides, I devoured science fiction when I was younger. This sounds like a plot from one of the comics,” Bucky added, smiling at the memory.

He was really cute… if a bit annoying.

“Well, this isn’t a comic book. It’s my reality,” she said, a hint of bitterness seeping into her tone.

Bucky didn’t seem to notice. “What is your reality like? You, know, the ‘other’ world,” he asked, as eager as a kid on Christmas Eve.

Darcy couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “It’s almost the same as this one, I think. Just no soulmarks.”

Bucky nodded. “Am I there?”

“Um. Yeah. I mean, you and I have never met, but…I’ve heard about you,” she offered tentatively. Bucky grimaced.

“So I’m the Winter Soldier there, too,” he surmised. Darcy nodded. “Would’a been nice to imagine a different outcome for myself, even if it was in another world.”

“I think the correct term is parallel universe, but I’m not sure.”

Bucky nodded, staring off into the distance. Darcy knew that he was still computing everything, but she’d never expected him (or anyone else here) to take what she’d said with such aplomb.

“Can I ask you something else?” He said, after a few moments of silence. Darcy was instantly wary.

“I guess…”

“What’s that thing in your pocket? It moves a lot.”

Darcy felt a surge of panic, and from the sharp expression on Bucky’s face, she knew he’d clocked it.

“It’s…a mouse.”

Bucky’s lips quirked up in an amused smirk. “A mouse.”

Darcy sighed through her nose. “A hazel dormouse, if you want to be specific.”

“Any reason you have a hazel dormouse in your shirt pocket all the time? I saw it this morning, too.”

Damn super-soldiers noticing things!

“There might be a reason,” Darcy replied, because coyness seemed the only way to delay the inevitable.

“Are you going to tell me the reason? I thought you were being all honest with me there. It was nice.” He was teasing her, mostly, but there was a hint of…something in his voice that made her _want_ to be honest with him, that made her want to share things that she should’ve been fighting to keep secret.

Pip peaked over the edge of her pocket, as if giving her permission. Bucky’s expression softened as he noticed the little mouse peering at him.

“Okay, so there aren’t any soulmates in my world, but…we have dæmons.”

Bucky looked back at her face. “Demons?”

She giggled. “No. _Dæmons_ ,” she corrected, exaggerating the pronunciation. “They’re a physical manifestation of your inner self. Or so the scientists say. The Church says they’re our soul.”

Bucky was staring, transfixed, at Pippen, who had clambered out of her pocket and was now balanced on her forearm. Before Darcy could warn him not to, Bucky had extended a hand, clearly attempting to touch Pip.

“Woah. Slow down there, cowboy,” Pip said, tartly, easily dodging Bucky’s fingers.

Bucky’s eyes went wide as saucers. “Did it just talk to me?” he breathed, gobsmacked.

In any other circumstance, Darcy would’ve laughed at his expression. Instead, she was busy gazing at Pip in wonderment.

He had just _spoken to another human being._

He’d never done that before.

“My name is Pippen. Not ‘it’,” Pip retorted, scathingly.

Bucky stammered out an apology.

Sensing Darcy’s shocked stare, Pip turned to look up at her and shrugged. “He’s a bit rough around the edges, but I kind of like him.”

Bucky looked somewhat mollified to have won Pip’s approval, but his pleasure dimmed quickly.

"I don't have a dæmon." He sounded a bit sad after everything, so Darcy didn’t say ‘duh!’ like she was tempted to.

"I know, but you do in my world. Everyone does." She didn't mention that the Winter Soldier had never been seen with a dæmon. It was too upsetting. All of the Howling Commandos paraphernalia showed Bucky Barnes with a beautiful, ferocious grey wolf dæmon- Darcy didn't know what had happened to her.

“Is mine a dormouse, too?” He asked, and Darcy grimaced. She should’ve known he would ask.

“Um, no. Dæmons can be really any animal. Yours was a grey wolf. I don’t know what she was called- that’s usually a personal thing.”

Bucky looked thoughtful. “She?”

“Yeah, in like 99% of cases, your dæmon is the opposite gender to you. No one knows why.”

He smiled slightly. “A wolf is pretty cool.”

Darcy laughed- obviously some things were the same in all worlds, including wishing for a tough dæmon. “It sure is.”

“I’m cool,” Pip interjected, swishing his impressively long tail and rubbing a paw over the lustrous fur on his belly for emphasis.

“No, you’re a dork,” Darcy retorted fondly, lightly tapping his head with her fingertip.

Pip glared up at her. “Only because you are.”

Darcy shrugged. She knew she wasn’t cool, and it hadn’t bothered her in many years.

Bucky was staring at them again. She was a bit worried that he was going to have some sort of aneurism.

“That’s amazing.” There was a longing in his voice that triggered something in Darcy. Bucky didn’t have a dæmon- he was always alone. All he had were a few lousy words written on his forearm that were supposed to lead him to his soulmate, but instead he’d ended up with her, someone who wasn’t even meant to meet him.

The same thing must’ve just occurred to Bucky, because he looked away, balling his hands into fists. He laughed, but it was the saddest sound she'd ever heard.

"I've been so excited to meet you. Ever since I was a kid, I wondered what you'd be like, how we'd meet.” He didn’t look at her when he spoke. “When Steve helped me get my head back on straight I could hardly believe that Hydra hadn't got to you yet. Should'a known that the universe wasn't done screwing me over."

Darcy felt terrible. Judging by his drooping whiskers, Pip did too.

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” she said quietly, not really sure what else she could say. Bucky shrugged, his jaw working back and forth before he managed to smile at her.

“Didn’t Hill say you have that briefing at four?”

“Huh? Oh shit!” Darcy checked her phone. Only five minutes to get wherever she was meant to be going.

Bucky chuckled at the look of desperation she shot him. “C’mon. I’m going too,” he said, gesturing for her to follow him back into the building.

Pip shot her a sorrowful look before darting back into her pocket.

Darcy might’ve been imagining it, but Bucky’s shoulders looked pretty slumped as she trailed him to the meeting room.

Yep, she felt like shit.

 

*****

 

The 4pm briefing was excruciating for a number of reasons.

Number one: Darcy still had no idea how she was supposed to do ‘her’ job. It involved a lot of paperwork and mission surveillance the likes of which she’d never done before.

Number two: She felt bad about making Bucky so miserable earlier, which conveniently lead to-

Number three: Bucky would not _stop looking at her!_ Every few seconds Darcy would feel a little prickle on the side of her face, and she’d look across the table to see Bucky giving her x-ray eyes. Steve, who was sat at the top of the table, did not miss this intense gazing, and proceeded to glance between Darcy and Bucky for the rest of the meeting.

Honestly, if the table hadn’t been so wide, Darcy would’ve tried her very best to kick Bucky’s legs. The last thing she wanted was for her  boss to call her out for making moon-eyes at one of the superheroes. Even though she wasn’t making moon-eyes at Bucky. She was 100% glaring at him.

The meeting wrapped up after two hours, in which Pip had fallen fast asleep and Darcy’s ass had gone numb. Her first job was beginning the next afternoon, when she’d be running mission surveillance for Hawkeye, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Black Widow, all of whom were on a mission in Estonia.

Feeling pretty overwhelmed at the importance of her new duties, Darcy scurried from the meeting room without a backward glance. She just wanted to have dinner, then call her parents, and go to bed. All while wishing that ‘her’ Jane would suddenly find a way to bring her back.

Of course that plan was never going to pan out.

Darcy had been twirling her pasta around her fork for several minutes, only contemplating actually _eating_ it, when a plate loaded with chicken and various vegetables was plonked down on the table she had been solely occupying.

Looking up, Darcy immediately scowled in the face of Bucky’s smile. “You mind?” He asked, sounding so hopeful that she didn’t have the heart to refuse.

She nodded, stuffing a huge forkful of spaghetti in her mouth before she could say something rude.

Bucky managed to eat in silence for all of three minutes and forty-two seconds (yes, she counted) before the barrage of questions inevitably began.

“Does Pippen have to go everywhere with you? Is that why he’s always in your pocket?” Bucky’s voice was low, and Darcy knew that no ordinary human would be able to hear him. Still, there could be enhanced beings everywhere for all Darcy knew.

“Dæmons can usually only move a few yards from their human. Pip likes lying in my pocket because he’s lazy and sleeps a lot.” Bucky chuckled.

Pip gave a little snort of disgust, and Darcy knew that if they weren’t in a public area, he’d be making a rude gesture at her.

“Usually?” Bucky prompted, when it was clear she wasn’t going to volunteer anything else.

Darcy shrugged. “Some people work at the bond between themselves and their dæmon so that they can be a bit further apart. It’s more common with people who have birds or sea creatures as their dæmons.” 

Bucky stared at her, a piece of broccoli dangling from the fork poised just below his mouth. Darcy quirked a brow and he looked away, quickly chewing the broccoli.

“When you stare at me like that, it makes me feel like an alien,” she pointed out. She thought there _might_ have been a blush on his cheeks.

“Sorry. It’s just fascinating,” Bucky smiled faintly. “You can ask me about soulmates, if you want. It isn’t half as interesting as dæmons, though.”

Darcy laughed. “Well, I already did some recon, so I think I understand the basic concept, but…what if your words are really generic, y’know? Something like ‘excuse me’, or ‘hi there’. How do you know who your soulmate is if the words are ones you hear all the time?” She hadn’t intended to ask, but the idea had been needling at her. She suspected that discussing soulmarks with Bucky was likely to be a double-edged sword, but dammit if she wasn’t going to do as much research on this ‘world’ as she could before she got back to her own life. Maybe she’d write a book on her travels.

“The words are a guide, sure, but no one could be tricked into thinking someone was their soulmate if they weren’t,” Bucky explained, his gorgeous eyes fixed on her in a way that made goose bumps erupt on the back of her neck. “When someone- the _right_ someone- says your words, you get this feeling. Like…happiness and excitement just washes right over you. It’s amazing.”

Darcy stared down at her dinner, well aware of the heat in her cheeks. She’d made Bucky feel that- he knew what it felt like to hear your soulmate say your words because of her. She surmised that a small part of him was disappointed simply because she hadn’t felt that joy and connection when she met him.

Taking another mouthful of pasta to give her time to compose herself, Darcy managed to quell her blush. “Huh. I guess it’s good that there’s a safety net. I suppose lots of shady people would try to fake a generic soulmark.”

Bucky nodded sagely, his expression mercifully impersonal. “Definitely. Most people cover up their marks in public before they meet their soulmate, anyway. It’s an old superstition.”

“Older than you?” Darcy quipped innocently.

Bucky’s eyes widened for a split second, before he grinned widely. There was definitely affection in his gaze, though he narrowed his eyes as if she had offended him. “Cheeky, Lewis. Picking on an old, disabled war veteran. Ain’t that what you kids call discrimination?”

Darcy laughed. “As if I could pick on you! You have a metal arm.” As her brain caught up with her mouth, Darcy realised that Bucky may feel self-conscious about his prosthetic. Not that he should do- it was totally badass, and she’d happily tell him that.

Bucky was completely unfazed. “This old thing?” he joked, turning his arm and flexing it so that all of the plates shifted and elegantly slotted into place.

Darcy had zero knowledge of mechanics, but even she could admit to being mesmerised by the fluid articulation of the prosthetic.

“You’re gonna catch flies, looking like that,” Bucky jibed, breaking off her prolonged admiration of his arm.

Darcy shook her head. “Sorry. It’s just fascinating. The way it moves…it’s like a natural arm.”

There was a hint of devilment in Bucky’s eyes as he peered up at her through his eyelashes. “It functions just like a normal arm. So does the hand, if you were wondering,” he said lowly, flexing his fingers and winking at her in case she hadn’t caught his blatantly lewd message.

Darcy felt as though her face had just gone up in flames. There he was again with the shameless flirting! She’d heard her fair share of borderline pornographic ‘chat up lines’ in bars and clubs as a college student, but those had been made under cover of darkness and loud rave music. Bucky just…said these things, in the light of day without any shame, and she had no idea how to react.

Should she be offended? (She really wasn’t)

Should she tell him off? (She suspected that would only encourage him)

Should she give him a taste of his own medicine? (That would _definitely_ just encourage him)

“I had been wondering about that. Thanks for clearing up any confusion,” she settled on, licking a stray bit of sauce from her lower lip nice and slowly for Bucky’s benefit. His nostrils flared as he watched the movement.

_Point for Darcy._

Dabbing demurely at her mouth with a paper napkin, Darcy slid her fork and spoon together. She had taken _way_ too much pasta at the self-service buffet, and her appetite hadn’t fully recovered from the interdimensional travel.

Bucky had almost cleared his plate, but when Darcy slid hers away from her, he raised his eyebrows. “That all you’re eating?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “There was a lot of spaghetti there!”

The set of Bucky’s mouth was sulky, but he wisely didn’t push it.

“Mind if I eat it, then?” He asked, after finishing his mountain of veggies.

Darcy looked at him askance, pushing the plate towards him. She knew that Captain America had a huge appetite because of the super-soldier serum, and clearly the same was true for Bucky, because he devoured the rest of her pasta in a few short minutes.

“Had enough?” She asked, when he sat back in his seat, a contented smile on his face. It looked like he’d licked her plate clean, even though she knew he hadn’t.

Bucky shrugged, unashamed. “I might see if they have any cake,” he mused, twisting around to look over at the food laid out on the other side of the room.

Darcy laughed, earning her a delighted grin from Bucky.

“Well, I’m stuffed, so I’m going to have to excuse myself. I need to call my Mom and Dad,” she said, unsure why she had told Bucky that.

“Okay. You don’t start work until midday tomorrow, right? Maybe we could check the perimeter again,” he suggested, smirking.

Darcy hesitated, because spending more time with Bucky might not be the most sensible idea, but it was nice to have someone who wanted to talk to her.

“Um…sure.”

“I’ll swing by your room at nine. Night, Darcy.” Bucky smiled charmingly as she waved and scurried off.

The connection she felt to him…it wasn’t just attraction. Sure, she found him attractive because she was a heterosexual woman, and she had eyes that functioned well when she wore her glasses. Bucky was a handsome man- that was just plain fact, but Darcy had to admit that she actually _liked_ being around him. He was a bit annoying, and cad-like at times, but for the most part she had really enjoyed speaking with him. She felt comfortable around him, which was crazy because they’d just met that morning.

“I like him too,” Pip offered consolingly, as Darcy locked her bedroom door and collapsed onto the bed.

“Hush, you,” Darcy chided, bussing him on the head as he settled comfortably next to her head on the pillow.

Darcy tapped her Mom’s contact info on the Starkphone, rolling her eyes when it went to voicemail. Virginia Lewis was a smart lady, but she had a infuriating habit of leaving her phone turned off at the bottom of her purse.

Rolling her eyes, Darcy called her Dad’s cell, praying that he had the wit to keep it charged and on hand.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dad,” Darcy replied, smiling warmly at the sound of her Dad’s voice.

“Darcy! Sweetheart, what a nice surprise! How are you settling in?” Yep, that was her Dad, ever the worry wart. If he’d had the facility’s address he probably would’ve been sending her care-packages laden with homemade cookies.

“Oh, you know. It’s all a bit overwhelming right now, but everyone seems pretty nice. I’m on official duty tomorrow afternoon, so that’s a bit nerve-wracking.” It felt good to be able to confess that to her Dad…even if he was technically her ‘other dimensional’ Dad. What a mind-melt.

“You’ll knock it out of the park, Darcy, I just know it.”

“Thanks Dad. So, what’s new with you?”

“Nothing too exciting. The Church is organising a big Easter bake sale, so I’ve been pretty occupied with that,” he mused, much to Darcy’s surprise. ‘Her’ Dad was a staunch atheist who only went into churches for weddings, funerals, or admiring beautiful architecture. “Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do much golfing. The weather has just been atrocious here for the past few weeks.”

“Huh,” Darcy looked at the clear dusk sky outside her window. “It’s pretty nice here.”

Her Dad chuckled. “Yes, I heard that the East Coast was getting unseasonably warm weather. But you know that Winter lasts a long time in Alberta.”

_Alberta?!_

Darcy’s heart was hammering. Her Dad was living in Canada? Why wasn’t he in their family home? Had he and her Mom moved? Worse, had he and her Mom _divorced?_

“Yeah, that really sucks. I hope it improves for you soon. Hey, can I talk to Mom? Her phone went straight to voicemail.”

There was a long pause filled with white noise.

Darcy heard her Dad exhaling loudly. “Darcy…what are you talking about?”

Darcy laughed, but it sounded panicked even to her own ears. Next to her, Pip began to fidget, his tail wriggling anxiously.

“Mom? Is she with you?”

“I…Darcy. Are you feeling alright?”

 _No!_ She thought, helplessly. “I’m fine.”

Her Dad sighed. “Sweetheart, I know a new job can be extremely stressful. Perhaps you should speak to a therapist-”

“Dad! I just want to talk to Mom!” Darcy interrupted, urgently.

“Darcy…Your mother has been dead for seven years. Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

Her Dad started rambling on about grief and prayer, and a whole bunch of other stuff Darcy didn’t hear because her entire world was crashing down around her.

Her Mom was dead. Her Mom was not here, in this world.

If Darcy became stuck here…that was it. She’d never see her Mom again.

Pip leapt onto her shoulder, pressing himself comfortingly against her neck as she burst into tears.

“-to be sad. Darcy? Don’t cry, sweetheart. I know it’s difficult. I still struggle with it, too, but your Mom wouldn’t want something so negative to overshadow this wonderful opportunity you’ve been given. She’d be so proud…”

Darcy couldn’t breathe, her sobs were rapid and hysterical as it slowly sunk in.

As if this world couldn’t get any more distressing.

Darcy talked with her Dad for another hour, in which he tried to calm her down with a lot of platitudes that really weren’t much help. She figured it was difficult for him because he’d had seven years to digest her Mom’s death, while for her the grief was fresh- not that he knew that, of course.

Eventually, Darcy’s tears subsided, replaced by a heavy sorrow. She bid her Dad goodnight and got ready for bed in a haze of misery, curling up in her bed with Pip and wishing for home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Poor Darcy :(  
> 2) I love writing this confident, charming Bucky so much! I usually make him such a sad, self-hating little spud.  
> 3) Bucky is a total sci-fi nerd, and I <3 it!
> 
> Thanks for the awesome feedback so far, it's much appreciated :D


	3. Part The Third

Darcy hadn’t expected to sleep a wink, but she awoke to a bright room and the sound of heavy knocking on the door.

“Darcy! Are you okay?”

Shit. It was Bucky.

She swallowed, trying to wake up her sob-dried throat. “J-just a minute.”

After patting cold water on her swollen, tear-stained face, Darcy pulled on a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt before cautiously opening the door to Bucky.

The bright smile slid off his face as soon as he saw her. “Darcy? What’s wrong?”

“I need a rain check on that perimeter walk,” she said, trying to sound light-hearted but knowing how devastated she still looked even after a long night’s sleep.

Bucky nodded understandingly, but when she tried to shut the door, he jammed a foot in the gap.

“Bucky-” She warned, wrenching the door.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on. I was knocking your door for a solid three minutes…You’ve been crying,” he stated, that irritatingly determined set to his jaw that she already recognised.

“It’s none of your business!” She snapped, not really caring about anyone’s feelings but her own.

Bucky sighed. “I ain’t saying it is. But I’m worried about you,” he admitted, sincerely. He obviously saw her waver because he pounced, eyes wide and beseeching: “Please. Whatever it is, let me help?”

Darcy let go, slumping and moving back to sit on the bed as Bucky entered the room and shut her door quietly behind him. Her bedroom looked tiny with him standing in it.

Bucky’s eyes alighted on Pip, who was also looking pretty pathetic. “Hi, Pippen.”

Pip wriggled the tip of his tail in a wave, but otherwise didn’t react.

Hesitating for a split second, Bucky crouched down in front of her, gazing up at her with a tender, concerned expression.

“What’s going on?” He asked, softly.

Darcy bit her lip. She wasn’t sure she could say it out loud. That might make it too real.

Bucky slowly reached for her hands, which were twisting anxiously on her lap. His warm right hand covered both of hers, and Darcy immediately felt herself relax.

“Are you worried about the mission surveillance? You don’t need to be. I know you’re gonna be brilliant,” Bucky said, smiling encouragingly.

Oh for the love of Thor. She’d completely forgotten about  her stupid, scarily responsible job!

Her lip wobbled, and Bucky panicked, realising he’d made it worse. “No? Good, ‘cause there’s nothing to worry about,” he assured her, voice harried. It was almost amusing to see the world’s most competent assassin reduced to terror at the sight of a woman on the brink of tears.

Almost.

Darcy tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling and trying to will her tears to retreat. “It’s my Mom,” she whispered, eventually. Her voice was raw from crying the night before. “She…she’s not alive, in this world. She died in a car crash.” Pip nestled against her neck, curling his tail around the back of it in a gesture of comfort.

She heard Bucky’s sharp intake of breath. “Shit. Darcy, I’m so sorry.” His hand gripped hers tighter, but he kept his metal hand resting on the floor.

“It’s…weird. Like, my Mom is still alive in my world, but it’s just…if I’m stuck here, then I’ll never see her again,” Darcy explained, her voice rising in pitch with every word until she was outright sobbing. She pulled her hands away from Bucky’s, pressing them against her face to hide how violently she was crying.

She could vaguely making out the lilting cadence of Bucky’s deep voice trying to soothe her, his big warm hand cupping her shoulder protectively.

Eventually her sobs trailed off into pathetic little hiccups, her eyes dry and swollen. Bucky fetched her a wet washcloth from her bathroom, and she took it gratefully, cleaning the salt off her face.

“Sorry,” she said, eventually. Bucky was still crouched on the floor at her feet. If he was impatient with her hysterics, he was hiding it with Oscar-worthy skills.

He smiled softly at her. “What are you sorry for?” He asked, making it clear that he thought she was ridiculous for apologising.

Darcy shrugged. “Freaking out on you.”

“Doll, I think it’s pretty understandable that you’re upset. You’ve been through the ringer.”

She mustered up a smile. “Well, thanks. For being so understanding.”

Bucky nodded. “I mean, I don’t _really_ understand what you’re going through. But I’ve been through the ringer before, myself. So I’m here if you ever need someone to talk to. Or a shoulder to cry on,” he said, grinning enough to show that dimple in his cheek.

Darcy looked at him speculatively. “You do have pretty great shoulders,” she admitted, flirting just a bit.

Bucky reacted exactly as she’d expected- he preened like a peacock.

“Thanks for noticing. I do lift an insane amount of weights to keep them looking good.” He winked at her.

Darcy shook her head, looking away from him and trying not to laugh.

“You want me to grab you something to eat from the canteen?”

Darcy glanced at the clock on her bedside table. 9:22.

“I’m not really hungry,” she admitted. The grief and anxiety had left her stomach a big knot of worry, and the idea of food was completely unappealing.

Bucky nodded sagely. “Maybe just some juice? You’re probably dehydrated, from the waterworks,” he teased, coaxing another smile from her.

Darcy found herself acquiescing, and when Bucky returned and handed her the tall glass of orange juice she downed it in one. He’d gathered some fruit for himself, and when he silently offered her a small apple, she accepted, chewing it mechanically.

“Does Pippen eat?” Bucky asked, looking over at the dormouse in question.

Bucky was sitting next to her on the bed. He had been all for crouching on the floor again, but she’d told him to stop being ridiculous. He’d replied that it wasn’t uncomfortable- he could keep it up for hours. That didn’t surprise Darcy, given how much she’d admired his thighs in the gym the day before.

Darcy smiled, amused. “No. He’s not _actually_ a dormouse. He’s a dæmon. He doesn’t need to eat or drink.”

They both looked at Pip, who was snoring softly. “But dæmons need to sleep?”

Darcy nodded. “I don’t know how far they _need_ sleep, but they usually rest when their humans do. Pip’s just extra lazy, I don’t know why. It must be my defining personality trait,” she said, with an ironic twist of her lips.

Bucky was on a roll. “You said he’s not a dormouse. Would a real dormouse know that he was a dæmon?”

Darcy tilted her head, considering. Bucky was watching her with that rapt, fascinated expression again. She was starting to find it quite endearing.

“They wouldn’t know he was a dæmon, but they’d know he wasn’t really one of them.”

Bucky chewed his orange slices thoughtfully. “If dæmons are your soul, or your consciousness, why do they take the form of animals? Why do they have any form at all?”

“Woah there, Dr Philosophy! You’re getting too in depth for me, I’m afraid. Dæmons are just a part of our lives, and honestly, there’s still a lot we don’t know about them,” she admitted. Bucky’s curiosity made her feel a bit guilty. She’d kind of taken Pip for granted because he was always there. She’d never stopped to really think about the implications of dæmons.

“It’s the same with soulmarks, here. They’re normal to us. Important, just…not something most people feel the need to completely understand.” Darcy looked down at Bucky’s exposed forearm. She didn’t know if he habitually wore short sleeves, or if he was only doing so now because he’d met her, but it was still peculiar to see the distinctive scrawl of her writing on his skin.

She must have stared for too long, because Bucky cleared his throat and she looked up to find him watching her with an affectionate expression.

Their faces were really close together. And Bucky smelled _really_ good, like wintery pine needles.

Darcy hopped off the bed, searching for her sneakers. “Um, shall we go on that walk? I think I have time before the mission surveillance-”

Bucky grimaced. “You don’t have to do that.”

Darcy glanced over her shoulder at him. “What? Walk with you? I want to.”

“I’m glad to hear that, doll, but I meant the mission surveillance. With everything that’s happened-”

“It’s my job,” she interrupted, tying the laces of her vibrant purple shoes.

“I know, and I admire your determination. I’m just sayin’, though. I bumped into Steve in the canteen and he said he’d run interference with Hill if necessary.”

Darcy whirled around to face him. “What?! What did you tell him?”

Bucky chuckled, getting to his feet. She didn’t think it was funny. She didn’t want other people knowing about her predicament, and she _especially_ didn’t want anyone else feeling sorry for her.

“Relax. I didn’t say much, just said you were a bit down, and that you might not be up to work today. You just say the word, and Steve’ll tell Hill I’m having a meltdown, and need to have my soulmate look after me,” he explained, with a cheeky grin that said he’d be more than happy for Darcy to take care of him.

Gritting her teeth into a smile, Darcy put her hand on her hip. “Fine, but I’m not tucking you into bed and feeding you soup if Hill feels the need to check up on us.”

“No problem,” Bucky shrugged lightly. “Why don’t you see how you feel after a bit of fresh air, huh?”

Darcy was quickly discovering that she found it very difficult to say ‘no’ to Bucky, especially when he was being so sweet. That he would offer to cover for her by making _himself_ seem mentally unwell was a huge deal, and Darcy was really touched by his desire to help her.

So, she didn’t complain when he paused in the middle of their very pleasant walk to gather up a big handful of daisies and sit on a scenic bench to begin making a daisy-chain.

She did, however, tease him.

“Aw that’s sweet, Bucky. Are you going to make yourself some flower jewellery? Maybe a daisy crown? They’d look lovely in your hair,” she said, gently tugging the ends of his long locks before she could stop herself. Bucky just grinned at her. His eyes were stunningly blue in the sunlight, and it was hard to look away from them.

“‘Course not, I’m making flower jewellery for _you_ ,” he retorted, deftly joining the delicate stems until he had a respectable length of daisy-chain, which he looped into a circle and draped over her hair.

Darcy laughed, feeling giddy. It was a warm, sunny day, and someone had been out mowing the lawns that morning, because the sharp smell of grass was heavy in the air. It was pretty easy to push her troubles away in such beautiful surroundings. Especially with Bucky doing his best to cheer her up.

“And for the gentleman,” he said, hamming it up and bowing as he presented a rather smug-faced Pip with his own teeny ‘crown.’

“You look very handsome, Pip,” Darcy said, smiling down at her daemon.

“Why thank you,” Pip replied, using the tip of his tail to push his crown at a jaunty angle, hanging over one ear.

“And you look beautiful,” Bucky told her simply, smiling delightedly when she blushed and looked away.

“It’s the flower crown. It was made by a skilled craftsman,” she replied, once she’d gotten her heartrate back under control.

Bucky slouched on the bench, squinting at her slightly as the sun beamed down on them.

“Is that right?”

“Yep. Artisanal daisy-chain maker. Not sure where exactly he learned his trade…”

Bucky laughed. “Three little sisters. Couldn’t get’em real jewellery, so I had to be good with the daisies.”

Darcy smiled, imagining the debonair Bucky Barnes of 1940 taking the time to patiently make an assortment of flower necklaces, bracelets and crowns for his adoring younger sisters.

“How’re you doing?” He asked quietly, gazing over at the far side of the complex like he knew she wouldn’t answer honestly if he was watching her like a hawk.

Feeling bold, and drunk on her fondness for Bucky, Darcy ran her fingers delicately over the back of his hand.

“Much better… thanks to you,” she admitted, fighting off the embarrassment that told her not to say things like that to a guy she barely knew. Bucky deserved to know that his efforts were actually making a difference; he was so sincere and earnest in his desire to help her.

Bucky’s hand twitched when she touched it, but he didn’t pull it away. His skin was warm, warmer than it really should’ve been, even on such a pleasant day. Obviously super-soldiers ran hot.

He turned his head, those big blue eyes drinking her in before his lips curled up in a smile. “I’m really glad.” He did have really nice lips; full and pink-

“Ahem. If you’re going to start macking on one another, can you warn me first?” Pip interjected sassily from his place on her shoulder.

Darcy felt the blood rush to her face, but Bucky just laughed at Pip’s words. For a split second, Darcy thought he was laughing at the idea of kissing her, but then his eyes met hers and she saw the heat in them. He’d been thinking about it, too.

 “Sorry, pal. Forgot you were there,” Bucky said, much to Pip’s irritation. He didn’t like to be overlooked. Darcy suspected it was small dæmon syndrome.

“Um, anyway. I think I will head to the command room,” Darcy said, pushing a bit of hair behind her ear. Maybe it was foolish, given that this wasn’t really even ‘her’ life, but she wanted to make a good impression on Hill.

Bucky nodded, staring at her a moment before smiling. “Good luck. Knock’em dead, and all that.”

Darcy frowned at him. “I think the main aim of my job is to stop them getting knocked dead. But thanks for the pep talk, really,” she snarked, standing up and dusting imaginary dirt off her jeans. She’d have to remember to change into her work uniform before reporting for duty. She was glad that the standard SI jacket was dark navy- she was already sweating at the thought of acting as mission surveillance.

“Hey,” Bucky snapped his metal fingers under her nose. She was too slow to swat them away. “You’re gonna be fine, Hill won’t be expecting you to know everything straight out the gate. Just stay focussed, report _anything_ suspicious to whoever you’re monitoring, no matter how small it seems, and remember to _breathe,_ ” he added, managing to sound sincere and condescending at the same time.

“‘Remember to breathe’? Wow, Bucky. Thanks for that amazing advice. However did I survive without you?” she teased, eyes rolling. To be honest, she did appreciate his little pep talk, but sarcasm was her default when she got nervous. And Bucky made her _very_ nervous.

Before Bucky could say anything and make her late, Darcy quickly leant down and pressed a light kiss to his cheek.

Sometimes actions were better than words.

She paused at the door into the facility, glancing back to see Bucky still sitting in the sunshine, grinning from ear to ear.

“You are _so_ smitten,” Pip murmured from his hiding place in her pocket.

Darcy considered denying it, but why bother?

 

*****

 

Her first day on the job went remarkably well. She didn’t make a total fool of herself, no one got injured or killed on her watch (well, some bad guys did, but that was the point, right?), and Bucky brought her dinner when it became apparent that the paperwork for the mission was going to push her projected eight hour shift into something nearer to twelve.

As a sympathetic Steve Rogers had informed her, Hill was a fair boss, but she was a real hard-ass when it came to paperwork.

“Oh my god, I love you,” she groaned, rubbing a hand over her tired eyes when Bucky edged into her office with a huge plate of chicken pie, four slices of pizza, and a steak. The way Bucky’s ears pinked made her regret her delayed brain-to-mouth filter, but all she could do was hope that he assumed she was addressing the food and not him.

“I didn’t know what to get you…” He explained, scratching the back of his neck and looking a bit sheepish as Darcy stared at the insane amount of food in amusement.

“Well, you hit the jackpot. Those are three of my faves.” She gestured to the spare rolling swivel chair in the corner, and Bucky pulled up a pew next to her, his eye darting rapidly over the reports on her multiple computer monitors.

“Do you have clearance to be looking at those?” Darcy asked archly, folding a slice of pizza in half and shoving it in her mouth. Her decision to forego a proper breakfast and lunch had soon lead to regret as her appetite made itself known again. The hiving business of the command centre had kept her thoughts firmly on work, and she had been able to set aside her grief for ‘this world’ Mom in favour of knuckling down and figuring out what the hell she was supposed to be doing here.

Bucky snorted inelegantly at her question. “Yes. Bet I have higher clearance than you,” he jibed, bumping her shoulder lightly with his. It was solid as a rock- and it wasn’t even the metal one. Boy had muscles for _days._

Pip chuckled from his position lounging at the top of her keyboard. Darcy glowered at him, taking another bite of pizza.

“Oh yeah, what are you?”

“Eight,” Bucky said, eyebrow raised in challenge.

Darcy cackled. “Haha sucker! I’m eight point five.”

“What? That’s not a real thing!” Bucky retorted, caught between disbelief and amusement.

“Yu-huh. Steve told me I was eight point five.”

Bucky just laughed harder. “That punk was just messing with you! They don’t do it in half numbers!”

Darcy spluttered, mouth agape. She’d been punk’d by Steve Rogers.

“I am shocked and appalled. That’s the guy representing our nation, and he’s picking on a newbie? What a jackass,” she sniffed.

Bucky smirked. “See? Now you’re gettin’ an idea about the guy behind the shield, and the ‘aw shucks’ routine. Steve’s an asshole. Spent near every day of my life from age nine to twenty-seven getting him outta the trouble his big mouth’d got him into. Yet everyone in this decade thinks he’s Saint Steve.”

Darcy spent the next five minutes up and down swearing that she’d get revenge on Steve Rogers if it was the last thing she did.

Just…not right at that moment. She was too busying tucking into delicious chicken pie.

“So I have another question about dæmons,” Bucky announced, with an expression that said he knew exactly how much his inquisitiveness both riled and amused her.

“You should read those Pullman books,” Pip suggested.

“Huh?”

“I searched dæmons on Google, and there’s this entire fictional series of books written about people with dæmons. It’s scarily accurate,” Darcy explained.

She’d expected Bucky to look intrigued, but instead he looked worried.

“How could someone write about dæmons without actually _knowing_ about them?”

“S’what I said,” Pip muttered.

Darcy shrugged. They were both being paranoid. Besides, did it even matter? People here believed it was all fictional- no one was going to see Pip and shout ‘ _J’accuse!_ ’ before carting her off to an intelligence agency.

“Coincidence?”

Bucky shook his head. “No such thing. Believe me.”

“Honestly, a fictional story about dæmons is the least of my worries,” she admitted, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice.

Bucky was spinning a biro pen between his fingers so quickly that it made a whirring sound.

“Fair enough.” His voice was tightly controlled, purposefully void  of emotion. Darcy and Pip shared a weighted glance.

“At the risk of getting into an argument again –and believe me, I’m too tired and strung out to argue properly- I _do_ need to figure a way back home,” Darcy prompted, tentatively. A muscle jumped in Bucky’s jaw.

Darcy looked over at Pip again; she felt bad for upsetting Bucky, especially after he’d been thoughtful enough to bring her food. Pip made a ‘go on’ movement with his paws.

“So, um…Dr Cho mentioned that Jane Foster is coming to the facility in a couple of weeks. Do you know anything about that?”

Bucky considered for a moment. “Foster? Thor’s girl?”

Huh, so they were still together in this world. Interesting.

“Yeah.”

“Dunno about her, but Thor’s coming here to train for a week. Steve’s hoping he’ll agree to live here full-time.”

Darcy poked at her pie. “Do you think he will?”

“Hmmm. I reckon it’ll be a hard sell. This place is fine for military personnel, but Thor’s a prince. He might only like palaces,” Bucky mused, smirking a little.

Darcy laughed. “Thor’s the chillest guy ever. I bet he’d live in a tent, if he had to. He stayed in our crappy lab facility for a couple of days, and that was when he was in super-arrogant, mortals-are-nothing mode.”

Bucky’s pen flew across the room. “Wha- you know Thor?”

Oops. “Uh, yeah. I forgot to mention, maybe? In my world, I was working with Jane Foster, and I was there when Thor first landed. I even tased him,” she added, because Bucky was looking pretty bamboozled. As predicted, the idea of her tasing the God of Thunder did get a smile out of him.

“Yeah, I think you forgot to mention that small fact, doll. Jesus.” Bucky shook his head. “Is that why you want to see him? You think he can send you back?” he asked slowly, glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

“Actually, I was counting more on Jane. She’s the one who sent me here.”

Bucky’s eyebrows made a break for his hairline. “You never mentioned that.”

Darcy hummed, idly picking the onions out of the (otherwise delicious) chicken pie. “Pretty sure I did.”

“You didn’t tell me she was Thor’s girl,” Bucky clarified.

“Even if I had, you’d probably have forgotten it. I swear all you ask about is dæmons,” she said, teasing him.

“That’s not true,” Bucky retorted, but he was smiling, too.  He sat in silence for a few minutes as she finished up her meal. “Does Thor have a dæmon in your world?”

Darcy let out a theatrical groan, flopping back in her chair as if physically exhausted by his questions.

“Oh my God, Bucky! You’re like a broken record!”

“C’mon. Inquiring minds want to know,” he said, poking her side.

Darcy bolted upright, pushing her chair away from him. “Don’t even think about starting that, Mister. I’m incredibly ticklish,” she warned, expression stern.

Bucky grinned unrepentantly. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

Still eying him warily, Darcy rolled back to her desk. “He had one while he was banished to Earth as a mortal, but when he got his godly mojo back, he didn’t have one. I think he was a bit sad about it, to be honest.” Thor’s dæmon had been a fabulous Golden Eagle, whom he named Fylgja.

Bucky looked over at Pip. “Yeah, I can see why you would be.”

Darcy felt a tremor of something… something _unpleasant_ ripple through her at his words. Maybe it was just the thought of not having Pip, of being in this strange world where dæmons didn’t exist, that made her so uncomfortable. She couldn’t say for sure.

“Anyway- what did you get up to today?” She found herself asking with faux-brightness. Anything to move away from _that_ topic.

Bucky smiled, looking more relaxed. “Ran some laps on the track. Did some weight training. The usual.”

“Sounds fun,” Darcy replied, leaving no uncertainty about her feelings on exercise.

“Dunno about fun, but I’ve gotta keep myself in top condition,” he admitted, before his voice dropped lower, “Besides, there’s this girl who really likes my shoulders, and I wanna impress her.”

Darcy’s blush was inevitable. “I never should’ve told you that. You’re arrogant enough without me dishing out compliments,” she huffed, glowering at him.

“Arrogant? _Me?”_ Bucky was clearly trying to look wounded, but the shit-eating grin on his face kind of ruined the effect.

“Yes. And vain. I can tell you use conditioner on that mane of yours. It’s like something from a L’Oreal commercial. I can practically see my reflection in it, it’s so glossy.”

Bucky hooted with laughter, kicking his feet up onto her desk. “I _am_ worth it. If I do say so myself.”

Darcy laughed in spite of herself. Bucky’s _joie de vivre_ was incredible, especially when you considered all he’d lived through.

“How’d the first day on the job go?”

Darcy sighed, glowering at her computer screens. “Well, it’s technically not over yet. But I haven’t had any disasters, so far,” she replied, aiming for optimism.

Bucky smiled proudly. “See? I told you, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Think you’ll be much longer?”

“Probably another hour or so to finish this paperwork,” she admitted, taking small bites of the steak. She was pretty full, but it was delicious. “I think once I get used to it, I’ll be way quicker, but there’s a lot on here and I don’t want to get it wrong.”

Bucky slid his feet back to the floor, running a hand through his hair as he stood. “Look, I’ll leave you in peace, otherwise you’ll be working on this past midnight.”

Darcy nodded, setting her knife and fork on the tray as Bucky lifted it. “Thanks for bringing me dinner.”

“No problem, Darce,” he replied easily, smiling down at her. Darcy raised her eyebrows when he didn’t make any move to leave the office.

“How about another walk tomorrow morning? Same time?”

Darcy grimaced. “I’m meeting Hill at nine, to go over all this stuff.”

Bucky looked a bit disappointed. “But I could walk at eight, if you want?” Darcy added hastily.

A grin bloomed on Bucky’s face. “Great. See you then. Pippen, Darce.” Before she could realise what was happening, Bucky had stooped down and pressed his lips to her cheek in a mirror of the kiss she’d given him that morning.

Bucky walked out of the room with a bounce in his step and a cheery whistle on his lips.

“He’s trouble,” Pip remarked drily. Darcy quickly removed her fingers from her cheek, and turned back to face the computer screens.

“You said it, Pip.”

 

*****

 

Work was much the same for the next few days, as she continued to act as support for the team in Estonia. On day four, she caught an IED that even Black Widow had overlooked, which earned her a glowing review from Steve.

“Good thing you caught that- it could’ve been a disaster. We’re so lucky to have you here, Darcy,” he told her after her shift, trademark earnest smile on his face. The sight of it made something wilt inside Darcy. She knew that Steve wasn’t solely referring to her job- he was talking about her friendship with Bucky. As far as Darcy could gather, aside from training Bucky kept mainly to himself, despite his seemingly outgoing personality. The only other person he willingly spent downtime with was Steve, and Steve was a very busy man.

The mission wound up on day five, and as the team flew back to the facility, Darcy’s job grew to include lessons in settling lawsuits for collateral damage- thankfully, most were just the bogus work of opportunists, hoping to make a quick buck off the Avengers and Stark Industries. Darcy was just relieved that the ‘surveillance’ portion of the mission was over; it had been seriously nerve-wracking, and she wondered how she’d cope if it were Bucky out in the field.

Darcy walked with Bucky every morning, regardless of her work shift. If she had to work past dinner time, he’d bring a tray to her office and eat with her. She deduced that he actually preferred this, because he could speak freely, without worrying about who may be watching him. Darcy had gradually noticed that her status as interesting ‘newbie’ had rapidly faded- no one gave her a second glance, now- but Bucky was followed by curious (sometimes fearful) eyes everywhere he went. Darcy was tempted to stand up on a table in the canteen one evening and tell everyone to mind their own fucking business, but she didn’t want to embarrass Bucky by drawing attention to it.

“So, when you were born, was Pippen a tiny, baby mouse? How does that work?” Bucky asked, breaking her reverie.

Darcy sighed. They’d only been walking for five minutes, and here he was again with more questions about dæmons. She wondered if Bucky just kept a little list of things he wanted to ask her, because the questions never seemed to let up.

“No. I think he was a puppy, actually. That’s pretty common for babies. Then, when you’re around two or three, your dæmon starts to shift.”

Bucky was hanging on her every word. “To what?”

“It’s all individual, and it depends on circumstances and the kid’s emotions. Like, if I was scared of someone or something, Pip would turn into a big, ferocious dog to scare _them_. When we went to a lake or a beach, he’d turn into a crab, or a some sort of water bird, so that he could enjoy himself.”

“Woah,” Bucky breathed, staring raptly at Pip- who was absolutely loving the attention. “Can he still change form now?”

“Nope. This is him. Dæmons usually ‘settle’ when the person hits puberty.”

Bucky tilted his head. “Why?"

Darcy laughed, having expected that. “I honestly don’t know, again, you’re going way out of my depth here. The Church claims it’s because that’s when childhood innocence ends, but the scientists says it’s just a case of mental maturation. Like, we’ve sort of ‘become’ ourselves- our personalities are fixed.”

“Huh,” Bucky mused, tucking his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t making daisy-chains today; unfortunately whoever mowed the lawns had gotten carried away and had massacred the daisy colony they’d sat next to earlier in the week.

Darcy still had the ‘crowns’ Bucky had made for her and Pip stored safely in her room, even though they had started to wilt.

“Why does this interest you so much?”

Bucky shrugged, bashful. “I always enjoyed fairy tales and science fiction as a kid…and a bit beyond that, to be honest. Anything to do with magic, or technology, or the future, I was all over it. I was fourteen when I left school, and I worked down at the docks, six days a week, just tryin’ to make ends meet. I guess life felt pretty boring, even with pullin’ Steve out of fights all the time. I suppose a part of me always wished for…more,” he said with a sigh, looking down at his metal arm. “And look where that got me. Be careful what you wish for, right?”

Darcy hated the bitterness in his tone. “It got you here, walking with me. You lucky dog.”

That got a grin out of him. “I am a lucky dog. You’re exactly the kinda dame I was dreaming of back then.”

“Oh yeah? What kinda dame am I?” Darcy prodded, mimicking his Brooklyn accent. He chuckled.

“Smart as hell. Tough as nails. Beautiful. Kind. Funny. Out of my league, basically.”

Darcy snorted in spite of the ferocious blush on her cheeks. “Out of your league? All those thing you just said? You could’ve been describing yourself.”

Bucky smirked. “I’m beautiful?”

Darcy peered up at his profile, admiring the strong jawline and straight nose and high cheekbones. “Yes. You are,” she said baldly, because it was so true. Pip tittered in her pocket, but she ignored him.

Bucky tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “You’re gonna make me blush, Darce,” he complained, shooting her a cheeky grin.

“Turnabout’s fair play.”

Bucky’s grin widened. “I make you blush?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know.

“Like you don’t do it on purpose!” Darcy countered, giving him a light shove. It was like pushing against a brick wall.

He shrugged, watching her from the corner of his eye. “Maybe I like seeing you blush.”

Darcy sighed, shaking her head. Bucky knew _exactly_ what he was doing- the history books had been right about his status as a ladies’ man, but somehow he managed to carry it off without seeming unlikable.

“Speaking of turnabout, I want to ask _you_ a question about this world,” Darcy said. She had been wondering about it for a while, but with the stress of everything that had been going on, she’d forgotten to ask.

“Shoot.”

“Did the Accords happen here?” They were the number one news topic in her world. The Avengers team had been split down the middle, and half of them were fugitives from the law. Although it wasn’t common knowledge, Darcy’s hacker community had discovered a disturbing prison for ‘supers’ called the Raft, which had been miraculously emptied of its prisoners a few months before. Intelligence communities around the globe were doing their best to find the wayward superheroes/criminals, but it had been almost six months, and nothing had turned up. Some pundits were starting to argue that Cap’s ‘team’ had headed off to Asgard- that was the only logical explanation as to why _no one_ could find even a whisper of them.

Bucky pursed his lips and squinted. “The Accords…that thing Ross was trying to push? About keeping the Avengers in line? Yeah, that tanked pretty quickly.”

Darcy had suspected that, given the set up at the facility, but still, it was pretty interesting that they hadn’t come into effect here.

“So what happened?”

Bucky shrugged. “Well, after the mess in Sokovia, there was some outcry. Understandable,” he acknowledged, “Some news agencies starting pointing the finger, then Ross got involved and it became political. Too bad for him that his unsavoury history with Dr Banner was leaked to the internet by an interested party.” He grinned.

“Stark?” Darcy guessed.

“Yep. Thor reminded the politicians that he was Crown Prince of Asgard, and that the Avengers were ‘his people.’ That got’em shaking in their boots.” Bucky chuckled lightly. “Then Stark got in front of the cameras and gave Ross a rollicking. Steve did some appearances, too. Asked the good American people and those beyond if they were really going to criminalise the people trying their best to protect them. They apologised for all the collateral, said they’d do anything to prevent it, but war don’t work that way…People seemed to really appreciate it, for the most part. You still get some arguing that the Accords should’ve been legalised, but every UN nation had a referendum, so there’s nothing the politicians can do without ignoring their own people and that don’t really fly these days.”

Damn, that sounded like a dream outcome.

Bucky caught onto the reason behind her curiosity pretty quickly. “I’m guessing it didn’t happen that way in your neck of the woods?” That’s what he always said. Never ‘your world’, or anything that involved admitting that she wasn’t actually from here. Darcy didn’t bother to correct him.

Darcy chewed her lips for a minute, wondering how much to tell him. In the end, she figured it didn’t much matter to _him._

“There was a horrible incident in Lagos, involving a few of the Avengers.The Accords were passed within a few days. The Avengers split down the middle. Then, there was a bombing at the signing of the Accords. The King of Wakanda died, along with a few others. You were…falsely accused,” she admitted, grimacing.

Bucky’s eyebrows rose. “How come?”

“Uh, as far as I know, you’d been keeping a low profile after the fall of SHIELD. Some guy with an axe to grind framed you, made sure ‘you’ were caught on camera at the crime scene. You were arrested in Bucharest, when Steve tried to help you. Not sure what happened after that, it wasn’t in the news, obviously, but you were seen at an airport in Germany right after, at the big Avengers showdown.”

Bucky quirked a brow. “Showdown?”

“Yeah. The pro-Accords group were trying to bring you all in. Some of you were imprisoned, but got out pretty quickly. No one’s seen the ‘anti-Accords group’ since,” Darcy explained, apologetically. She hated talking about the Accords. The injustice of them made her blood boil.

“Wait, wait. Who was pro-Accords?”

“Um. Stark. Natasha. Colonel Rhodes and the red man with the cape-”

“Vision,” Bucky supplied. Looking grim.

Darcy felt anxious. She didn’t want to sow any discord at the facility. She gathered that things were fractious enough in the team without her getting involved and flapping her big mouth. “Not that it matters, obviously. It didn’t happen like that here,” she reminded him, placing a hand on his arm.

Bucky nodded eventually, coming back to himself.

“Yeah, you’re right. Still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, though.”

“Me, too.” Bucky smiled down at her. It was impossible not to smile back.

They walked in silence for the next ten minutes, both digesting what they’d just heard.

“Hey, uh, I wanted to tell you…Thor’s coming a few days early,” Bucky said softly, scratching the back of his neck in the way that Darcy had realised meant he was nervous.

For a split second her heart had stopped, assuming that he was about to tell her Thor and Jane weren’t visiting after all. “Oh. That’s good,” she said, sighing with relief.

“Uh huh. Should be here on Monday,” Bucky murmured lightly, not looking at her.

She knew that even though _she_ was excited about the possibility of returning home, it was something that Bucky dreaded.

Feeling bad, Darcy lengthened her steps to catch up with Bucky, looping her arm through his so she could walk next to him. He glanced down at her in surprise, but relaxed into the contact immediately. She usually kept a healthy distance between them, because Bucky was so attractive he should come with a warning sign. Something like ‘Ladies and gents, gird your loins- and your heart’.

Still, she thought it was safe enough for her to be close to him.

After all, she hopefully wouldn’t be around for too much longer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) If I had the time and the patience I would've done a little drawing of Pip wearing his flower crown. So cute.
> 
> (2) I also would've drawn 1940s Bucky making flower crowns for his sisters. Super cute.
> 
> (3) I mentioned there that Bucky left school at age 14. Now, I have zero idea of what the American education system was like in the 30s and 40s, but my own Grandpa (born 1920) here in the UK left school at 14, as did many others who weren't going 'on' to further education. Actually, my Grandpa worked at a shipyard from age 14 til 20 when he enlisted in 1940, so not dissimilar to Bucky!
> 
> Thanks so much for the comments and kudos! :)


	4. Part the Fourth

The rest of the week flew by, and before Darcy knew it, it was Sunday night and she was anxiously pacing around her room.

Thor and Jane would arrive tomorrow morning, and for some reason the thought of it made her feel sick.

“We could be going home tomorrow,” Pip reminded her, cheerfully. He’d been pretty listless the past few days, but the promise of home seemed to have perked him up.

Darcy grimaced. “Definitely not. Tomorrow will just be explaining what happened to Jane and praying that she has some idea about how to help. I don’t think she’s going to figure it out in a matter of hours.”

Pip tsked. “Don’t be so negative.”

“I’m _not_ , Pip. I just don’t think we should get our hopes up. It could be months before Jane figures out how to send us back, if ever.”

“Don’t say that,” Pip whispered, voice trembling with fear. She felt the same way. The idea of never seeing her Mom again, of working with Jane, seeing her college friends…it was too scary to think about.

Not that this world was full of misery and loneliness, of course. Darcy begrudgingly admitted to herself that she was quickly falling for Bucky, who made no secrets about his own interest in her. In addition to their morning walks and impromptu dinner dates, Bucky had invited Darcy to play board-games and pool with him and the other Avengers the previous night. The knowing looks of Wanda and Natasha as Bucky hovered next to Darcy all evening made it clear that their mutual attraction was pretty obvious to everyone else, though no one mentioned soulmarks.

Watching the Avengers (or, most of them) carrying on with each other made Darcy’s heart ache, just a little bit. It made her hate the Accords in her world even more- they had torn apart so many solid friendships.

Although, as Darcy witnessed Natasha threaten Steve with actual violence when he ‘stole’ one of her lucrative hotels, she had to concede that Monopoly may not be a safe past time for team-bonding.

Bucky had been uncharacteristically quiet on their walk that morning, and Darcy knew that he was as fixated on Thor and Jane’s imminent arrival as she was. And, even though she knew that _logically_ she had nothing to feel guilty about, the downturned set of Bucky’s mouth made something throb within her.

She didn’t want to make him sad; she just wanted to get back to her own life.

Even if that did mean leaving him behind. Of late, that idea had become harder and harder to stomach.

Pip, well aware of her inner turmoil, clambered up her arm and nestled against her neck. “It’s going to be okay,” he assured her.

_It’s a sad day if your own daemon is lying to you._

 

*****

 

They didn’t walk around the grounds on Monday morning. Bucky showed up at her door at nine, a tight smile on his face as he led her through to the Avengers’ common room. It was empty, save for two very familiar figures- one enormous, and the other tiny.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Bucky murmured, stopping in the doorway. Darcy felt a small, stupid echo of panic.

“Um, okay,” she managed. Bucky nodded stiffly, barely looking her in the eye before he turned on his heel.  Jane and Thor were over by the windows, talking lowly to one another. They hadn’t noticed Darcy and Bucky at all.

“Bucky!” Darcy whisper-shouted. He stopped dead, turning back to look at her. She hurried over to him, flinging herself at him and wrapping her arms around his waist.

Bucky stood still for a moment, his arms held awkwardly in the air before he gently rested them on her shoulders, his big hands holding her against him.

“Thanks,” Darcy whispered, face pressed to his chest. He smelled incredible, and he was firm, and warm. Frankly, Darcy never wanted to let him go.

She felt Bucky exhale, his breath ruffling the crown of her hair. “For what?”

Darcy wasn’t really sure what she was thanking him for. Being her friend? Looking after her? Setting up this meeting between her and Jane even though she knew he _really_ didn’t want to?

“Everything,” she said, though it still wasn’t enough. Bucky sighed, deeply.

When their hug had gone on for several dozen Mississippis, Darcy reluctantly backed away. Bucky’s arms slowly dropped from her shoulders. The look in his eyes was inscrutable, his teeth pulling at his lower lip.

“Anything for you,” he murmured eventually, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead before shooting her a grimace-smile and walking away.

Darcy just stood in the hallway, watching until he was out of sight. She felt…fizzy. Not just with nerves, but with something else.

“Ahem,” Pip cleared his throat, bringing Darcy back down to Earth.

“Alright, alright,” she muttered sullenly. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to this.

When she re-entered the common room, Thor and Jane were twined together on the couch. They were sickeningly cute together, and Darcy was curious as to how they had made their relationship work in this world when it had tanked so spectacularly in her own.

Not that she was going to lead with that question, of course.

“Hi. I’m Darcy Lewis.” Thor and Jane stood up at the sound of her voice, Thor smiling widely and Jane watching her curiously.

She had anticipated that they wouldn’t know her, but it still stung to see the distant, polite look in Jane’s eyes.

“Lady Darcy, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am Thor Odinson, and this is my lady wife, Jane-”

“You’re _married!”_ Darcy exclaimed, unable to stop herself. Jane raised her eyebrows at Darcy’s outburst, but Thor just smiled fondly down at his…wife.

“Indeed, we were legally bound by your Midgardian customs a few short weeks ago,” Thor said enthusiastically.

Darcy, ashamed by her outburst, tried to seem friendly and normal. “Oh, that’s great. Uh, congratulations.”

“Sergeant Barnes said you wanted to speak with me about something…complex,” Jane interrupted, clearly done with the conversational pleasantries. Her entire demeanour gave off a steely laser-focus that Darcy had never seen ‘her’ Jane direct at anyone before.

Darcy fidgeted with her sleeves, slowly approaching the seating area. “Yeah, it’s pretty out there. But I think you might be the only person who can help me.”

The three of them sat down, suddenly all business, and Thor and Jane listened raptly as Darcy explained what had happened to her. To their credit, neither of them interrupted until she was finished.

And they didn’t laugh in her face, which was always a bonus.

“A most intriguing tale,” Thor murmured, when Darcy had told them all she could think might be relevant.

“Uh huh,” Jane muttered, staring off into space. It was an expression that Darcy recognised- Jane was already coming up with numerous theories and possible solutions to what she’d just heard.

Darcy shrugged. ‘Intriguing’ probably wasn’t the word she’d use. Stressful and scary would be more like it.

Jane was still staring out the window, now muttering softly to herself. Thor grinned at Darcy.

“You are the soulmate of Sergeant Barnes?” he asked, but Darcy suspected that he already knew the answer.

“Sort of,” Darcy hedged, not sure if she wanted to get into this with someone else. Even if it was Thor.

Thor nodded sagely. “I suspect that is why you are here.” Jane stopped talking to herself, and raised an eyebrow at her husband.

Darcy felt a heavy weight drop in her stomach. “How’s that now?” she asked, voice light.

“All beings in this universe possess a soulmark. There is not a single being in the Nine Realms who does not have one. In most cases, mates belong to the same race, but in some cases…” Thor trailed off, gazing at Jane. Darcy’s eyes flickered down to their uncovered forearms, and sure enough, there were the words shimmering on their skin.

“Well, as Jane and I are fated, I imagine that it is not impossible for one from another dimension entirely to have a mate in this one.”

Darcy blinked at him. “I don’t get it. I mean…I’m not meant to be here. I don’t _have_ a soulmark, so how could I possibly be Bucky’s soulmate?” Her voice became more and more high-pitched as she spoke. She didn’t like Thor’s hypothesis one bit- that this was meant to happen to her just so that she could meet Bucky. This…this whole thing was just a glitch in the matrix. It was _not_ Fate. She couldn’t accept that.

Thor looked apologetic. “I am sorry, Lady Darcy. I do not know the answer to your question. I have never heard of such an occurrence in all my years, but I swear that I shall ask my mother and father for guidance.”

“Thanks,” Darcy replied weakly. Jane still hadn’t said anything. “Do you…do you think you can help me?”

Jane smiled for the first time. “It’s going to be a challenge, but…I think I can do it,” she said, sounding confident. It soothed Darcy’s frayed nerves, just a bit.

“Thank you. Both of you, seriously. I know you don’t know me, so I really appreciate that you’re willing to help,” Darcy said, stopping before she could gush any further.

“Any friend of Steven’s is a friend of mine,” Thor assured her. She knew he was being kind, but it still made her a bit sad that she was only a friend by association, and not Thor’s long-lost lightening sister. “You could not be in better hands than those of my Jane. She is the brightest mortal this world has ever seen,” he added, proudly.

Jane blushed lightly, giving Thor’s arm a feeble nudge. “I don’t know if I’d say that, but I have created inter-dimensional portals to Asgard several times in the past couple of years. So I already have the groundwork; I’ll just have to figure out how to connect to your world. I’m going to need you to tell me _everything_ , okay? Every detail you can think of. It’s not going to be easy, tapping through a space-time continuum, and I don’t want to establish contact with the wrong parallel universe.” Jane was practically vibrating with excitement as she elaborated the parameters of her work.

As if on cue, Pip popped out of her pocket. Darcy giggled at Thor and Jane’s confused expressions. “Okay, Dr Foster. Where do you want me to start?”

 

*****

 

“How was it?” Bucky mumbled, as if the words pained him. They were eating in Darcy’s office again- not because she’d had an overabundance of work to do, but because she wanted to be able to speak freely with him.

Darcy poked at her steak sandwich unenthusiastically. “It was…weird. Jane’s my best friend, and she didn’t even know me,” she lamented.

Bucky eyed her sympathetically. “But she thinks she might be able to do something?”

Darcy managed a smile. “She seemed pretty optimistic. She was already making calls to Stark about setting up a lab here. Apparently he’s been trying to recruit her for years.” It struck Darcy as peculiar that the same had never happened in ‘her’ world. Jane was a genius, and if her wormhole theory had delivered, it would’ve been pretty damn useful to the Avengers, if only because it provided Thor with an easy means of access to Earth.

“That’s good,” Bucky said, making it sound like he _almost_ meant it. When Darcy glanced up, he was staring at her with sad eyes and a downturned mouth.

“It’ll still take weeks. At least,” she assured him, softly. Bucky reached out for her hand, gently kissing the back of her fingers.

He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to.

 

*****

 

It had been four days since her ‘meeting’ with Thor and Jane, and Bucky was noticeably tense on their daily walk. It was almost May, and the weather was pleasantly warm, the days lengthening well into the evening.

Instead of following their usual route around the perimeter, Bucky took Darcy’s arm and led her into the Forbidden Forest- as she’d now dubbed it.

“Bucky, where are we going?” Despite the sunny day, the woodland was dark and slightly damp, having retained the wetness from the rainfall earlier in the week.

Pip wriggled out of her pocket. She was surprised to see him awake. “This place is like something from a horror movie,” he muttered.

“Bucky’ll protect us from any mad axemen,” Darcy laughed. Bucky grunted, not turning back to look at her. She didn’t know what had gotten his underwear in a twist.

Bucky came to a halt after a few minutes. The forest was even larger than Darcy had realised. From where they stood, she couldn’t see anything but trees; trees whose leaves blocked out most of the daylight.

“I need to talk to you about something, and it’s important that no one on the base overhears,” Bucky told her, his hands grasping her shoulders. She’d rarely seen him so serious, so focussed. He was usually fun and charming and sweet.

“Bucky, what is it? You’re freaking me out.”

He grimaced, regretful. “Sorry, sweetheart. I know this seems dramatic, but that place is crawling with surveillance.”

Darcy blinked. “Uh oh.”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah. ‘Uh oh’ is right. You know everyone still thinks you’re…well, that you’re from _here._ ”

“Except you and Jane and Thor,” she interjected. Granted, she didn’t technically _know_ this Thor and Jane, but she trusted them all the same.

There was no question of trusting Bucky, of course.

“Yeah. And it needs to stay that way. I’ve already talked to Foster and Thor. They’re keeping schtum, but that’s not the only problem.”

Darcy raised her eyebrows.

Running  a hand through his hair, Bucky grit his jaw. “Yesterday, Natasha told me that Hill has been passing Nick Fury intel on you.”

Darcy stared at him. “Nick Fury as in…the head of SHIELD? Ex-head of SHIELD?”

“Ex,” Bucky confirmed. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I sorta bumped him off, or it seemed that way. But he’s definitely alive, and he’s putting SHIELD back together.”

“I thought Hill worked for Stark Industries.”

Bucky nodded. “She does. But she was with SHIELD for fifteen years. Her loyalty lies with Fury, not Stark.”

Darcy bit her lip. “Why are they interested in me? Did they get footage of Pip?” She asked, looking anxiously down at her dæmon.

Bucky huffed out a breath. “Actually, they don’t know anything about that. Honestly, they’re interested in you because of _me._ ”

“But why would they- _oh!”_ Darcy breathed, looking at Bucky’s right arm. He shrugged apologetically.

Bucky stepped forward, cupping her face in his hands. Darcy’s heart thundered in her chest.

“They know you’re my soulmate. Hill saw the words. They ain’t going to do anything to you, but the fact is, doll, you’re leverage,” he explained quietly.

“Leverage!” Darcy hissed. “Against who?”

The corners of Bucky’s mouth tilted up. “Me, of course.”

Darcy frowned. “But…aren’t you _allies?_ ”

Bucky nodded. “For now, yeah. But Fury and Hill know how quickly the game can change, and the fact is: they’re not Avengers. The team’s grown beyond what Fury set up, and he doesn’t have any say in it any more. Right now, that’s fine…”

“But if he ever needs to blackmail the Avengers, I’m a good way to do it,” Darcy finished, dully. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She liked Hill, in spite of her brusque manner, and now Darcy would never be able to look at her the same way.

Bucky’s thumbs traced her cheek bones, drawing her eyes back up to his. “I’d do anything for you, and they know that,” he said softly. “And Steve’d do anything for me. They know that, too, and Steve's the team leader, so...it's like dominoes, y’know?”

“So what do I do?” Darcy asked, well aware of the worry in her voice.

Bucky smiled reassuringly. “Nothing. I ain’t telling you this to frighten you, Darce. I’m just warning you to keep a lid on your…origins around the facility. You never know who might be listening, and frankly, if Hill and Fury find out about where you’re really from they might try to get their hands on you, Avengers be damned.”

Darcy nodded, feeling frankly terrified. The fear must have shown on her face, because Bucky made a comforting noise and kissed her forehead.

“I’m not going to let that happen. I promise,” he assured her. “I’ve checked your room over for bugs. It’s clean. So’s your office. I’ll keep doing sweeps to make sure, and I’ll add Foster’s lab to the list. Otherwise, outside’s the only safe place to talk about this stuff, got it?”

“Yes. Thank you, Bucky,” she sighed, twining her arms around his waist and leaning her head against his chest. The heat of him bled through the fine fabric of his Henley.

Darcy really didn’t know what she’d do without him.

“When I told Thor and Jane about everything…Thor thinks that I came here just to meet you,” Darcy murmured, leaning back to look up at Bucky’s face. She hadn’t been sure about telling him this. His expression was carefully neutral, but his eyes were a storm of emotion.

Bucky brushed her hair back from her face. “Then I’ve put you through a lot of trouble,” he said after a moment, attempting a smile.

“I’m really glad I met you,” Darcy admitted. Something flickered in Bucky’s eyes, and she knew that he understood exactly what she was saying, even if it wasn’t parcelled up in the traditional ‘three little words.’

If she said those…there’d be no going back. Literally or figuratively.

Bucky swallowed audibly, his eyelids dipping for a moment. His pale eyes shone wetly when he looked at her again. “I feel the same.”

Their faces were only inches apart; she could feel Bucky’s breath on her lips. Darcy gripped him tighter, urging him on, because she _wanted this_ , in a way she’d never wanted it before. Not with anyone else.

Bucky’s right hand cupped her jaw, the calloused thumb tilting her chin to just the right angle as his lips pressed against hers.

Darcy had thought about kissing Bucky’s lips quite bit over the past couple of weeks, but her imagination hadn’t been able to do it justice.

Bucky licked at her lower lip, and suddenly the chaste kiss became anything but as they each did their best to taste the other.

When Bucky’s hand dipped to her lower back, pulling her up against him, Darcy briefly worried about Pip being flattened. He was being uncommonly quiet.

Then Bucky did something with his teeth that frankly made Darcy forget her own name.

The kiss eventually petered off into playful little pecks that brought a smile to Darcy’s face. It was like neither of them could quite bear to stop.

“I don’t care why you’re here. I’m just glad that you are,” Bucky whispered, between kisses.

Darcy was glad his eyes were closed.

He couldn’t see her crying.

 

*****

 

“Pip, I’m in so much trouble!” Darcy whined, pacing around her room. It had been ten hours since Bucky had kissed her out in the woods, and she could still feel his lips on hers like a brand.

“I’ll say,” Pip agreed drily.

Darcy scrubbed her hands over her face. “I shouldn’t have kissed him-”

“I know. I almost got squished between the pair of you. That’s not the way I want to go.”

Darcy glowered at Pip. He was lounging on her window-sill, looking smug. He wasn’t supposed to _enjoy_ her inner turmoil, he was supposed to share it.

“I shouldn’t have spent so much time with him. I should’ve just pushed him away at the very start,” she groaned, flopping lengthways onto her bed.

“But then you’d be sad, and _he’d_ be sad. Besides, there’s no use thinking that. You can’t go back and undo it all,” Pip reasoned, scampering over to join her on the duvet.

Darcy scooped him up, setting him gently on her sternum. “Yeah. I know. It’s just…how am I going to leave him?” she asked softly, not really expecting an answer.

“I don’t know,” Pip admitted, “But let’s not worry just yet. Like you said, it could be weeks before this Jane figures something out.”

Darcy kissed his little head. “You’re right,” she said, even though they both knew that the idea was of little comfort. Frankly, the longer she was here, the more she was going to become attached to Bucky, and the harder it was going to be to leave him. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes just thinking about it. Pip whimpered, pressing himself against her neck.

They had a little cry together for a few minutes, the silent kind of crying that leaves you breathless and feeling empty. Darcy eventually worked up the energy to haul herself off the bed and wash her face. She hadn’t even eaten dinner yet, and she didn’t want to go to the canteen with a red, tear-stained face.

Just as she was running a brush through her gnarled hair, there was a knock at the door. Raising a brow at Pip, she crossed the room and opened the door, completely unsurprised to find Bucky standing on the other side.

“Hi.” Her heart was fluttering just at the sight of him. Talk about screwed.

Bucky smiled softly, looking very much like he wanted to kiss her. The hallway was pretty quiet at this time of the evening, but Darcy was glad that he didn’t chance it.

“Hey. You alright?” He asked, even though Darcy was certain he knew the answer. She turned and went back into the room, waving for him to join her.

“Do you have a sixth sense that tells you when I’m crying?” She teased, tying the laces of her sneakers.

Bucky shifted, scratching the back of his neck. “Uhhh…”

“Oh my God! I was only joking!” Darcy cried, completely blindsided. “Can you actually feel my emotions?”

Bucky shook his head. “No. No. I just…if you’re _really_ distraught, then I feel it. It’s just like a…compulsion in the back of my mind, that I have to check up on you.”

Darcy wrinkled her nose. “Sorry. That sounds…pretty invasive. For both of us.”

“It’s standard soul-bond stuff,” Bucky admitted, shrugging. “If you were scared, I’d feel it, too.”

Darcy raised a brow. “But if I was in danger you wouldn’t know where I was. Right?”

Bucky’s teeth scraped over his bottom lip. “No. I don’t have an inbuilt tracking device or anything, but I can sense when I’m near to you.”

Darcy’s eyebrows were in danger of never returning to their normal place. “What?”

Bucky shoved his hands in his pockets. He looked like a schoolboy getting a telling off. “I sort of know where abouts you are because…the closer I am to you, the happier I feel,” he muttered.

Darcy felt like someone had just kicked her in the stomach. God, as if the prospect of her imminent departure couldn’t get any worse!

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” She demanded, aware that she was shouting at him, even though he didn’t deserve it. It was easier to be annoyed than face crying again.

She could see the tendons in Bucky’s jaw clench, but he was a better person than her so he didn’t snap back. “I knew it would freak you out. I know you don’t feel it because you don’t have my words, but it’s normal here. I can’t…I can’t control it. So if it bothers you, I’m sorry.”

Darcy sighed, reaching for him. Bucky wrapped his arms around her tightly, resting his chin on her head.

“It doesn’t really bother me. I’m just being a bitch,” she admitted, her voice muffled by his shirt.

Bucky chuckled, the laughter reverberating through his chest. “You ain’t. I should’ve told you. I guess I just didn’t want to rock the boat.”

“I get that,” Darcy murmured. She didn’t want to rock the boat either, but she seemed to be doing it quite a bit anyway. “It just freaked me out because…eventually I’m not going to be here, and I’m…worried about how it’ll be for you,” she added, her words tripping over the awkwardness she felt.

Bucky exhaled, his breath ruffling her hair. “Don’t you worry about me, doll. You got enough on your plate already.” He smiled down at her. “Besides, we still have some time together, right?”

Darcy nodded, managing a weak smile in return. Bucky’s eyes held her own for a moment before he dipped his head, kissing her sweetly. There was already something wonderful and comforting about the feel of his lips on hers.

“You eaten dinner yet?” He asked, his thumbs catching a few stray tears that were winding down her cheeks.

She sniffed. “No.”

“Want me to bring something to your office, or do you want to eat in the canteen?”

Darcy didn’t have to think about it. “Office.” _I don’t want to be with anyone but you_ , she thought.

Bucky smiled, chucking her chin until she mustered up a smile herself. “What do you fancy? I think there’s lasagne tonight.”

Darcy’s appetite perked up at the thought. “Mmmm yes please.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in five, doll,” he promised, carefully shutting her door behind him.

Darcy looked at Pip, who had moseyed over to her desk. “I repeat. I’m in trouble,” she said, drily.

“The way to your heart _is_ through your stomach,” Pip said sagely, leaping onto her hand when she held it out to him.

Bucky didn’t need to take a circuitous route to get her heart.

He already had it.

 

*****

 

A week after Jane and her hubby arrived at the facility, Darcy was summoned to the lab. Beyond answering some initial questions about ‘her’ world, Darcy hadn’t spoken to the tiny astrophysicist.

Mercifully, the bad guys of the world had decided to take the week off, so Darcy’s workload was minimal. She was quickly understanding that her job had three settings: the stressful intensity of mission surveillance, mind-numbingly boring paperwork, and twiddling her thumbs while sitting in on meetings between Hill and the security team at Avengers Tower. It was 60 or 0, with little in between.

Darcy finished up in her office early, fetching some coffees from the canteen to take as good will gestures. God bless Tony Stark- the man had ensured that the canteen and all common areas had state-of-the-art espresso machines. Darcy made a latte for Dr Cho because she had no idea what the woman liked, and a cappuccino each for Thor and Jane. She hoped their preferences were the same as their counterparts in ‘her’ world.

Having never been to the lab section of the facility after her first, awkward day, Darcy was a bit overwhelmed by the maze of shining labs. Thankfully, Dr Cho’s office was clearly sign-posted.

“Knock knock,” Darcy said, feeling a bit self-conscious. She had intended to visit the lovely doctor sooner, but the time had just slipped through her fingers.

Dr Cho looked up from her desk. She wasn’t wearing scrubs today, just slacks and a pale blue sweater. She had an air of elegance and poise that Darcy would _never_ be able to replicate.

Cho smiled. “Darcy, hello. Come on in.”

“Hi Dr Cho. I just wanted to call by and say a belated thanks for helping me out.” Darcy placed the coffee on Cho’s magnificent glass desk. “It’s a latte. Sorry, but I didn’t know what you like.”

“Oh, call me Helen. Thank you, that was very thoughtful. I love the coffee here,” Dr Cho said, immediately taking a sip of the coffee. It sounded like she really meant it. “How is your back?”

“All better. Haven’t had a single problem with it, thanks,” Darcy grinned. She’d almost forgotten about hurting her back when she first arrived. It seemed like such a long time ago.

“And your mouse?” Cho enquired kindly.

Pip shifted in her pocket, almost as if he wanted to pop out and show the doctor that he was fine. “Much better. Sorry this is a flying visit, but I’ve been summoned by Dr Foster,” Darcy explained. “Have you met her yet? I did say I’d introduce you.” Darcy felt a bit guilty that she’d forgotten her promise.

In fairness, this Jane wasn’t _actually_ her friend.

Cho smiled widely. “Don’t worry. I met her a couple of days ago. It was wonderful, but I’m sure I made myself look a bit like a wide-eyed idiot.”

Darcy stood, chuckling. “I think we’re all wide-eyed idiots, compared to Jane. See you later.”

“Bye, Darcy.”

Her coffees were well-received by Mr and Dr Odinson. After thanking Darcy, Jane distractedly popped the lid on the carry cup and downed the sizeable cappuccino like it was a shot. Thor sipped his slowly, periodically emitting small noises of supreme happiness. Although he looked pretty bummed when he explained that he hadn’t been able to consult his father as he had hoped. Apparently he and Odin were on the outs again, though Thor held out hope that his mother would impart some wisdom soon.

“How do you fare, Darcy?” he asked, the corners of his eyes crinkling with the force of his smile.

“Not bad, thanks. Just keeping up with work. What about you? No baddies to beat down this week, huh?”

She had only been joking, but Thor sighed dejectedly. “Indeed, I am eager for a battle, yet I know that peace on Midgard is short and ought to be treasured.”

Darcy nodded. Pip was scuttling around the lab, having a ball. It wasn’t often he could get out and explore anywhere other than her bedroom or office, and they were pretty dull.

“Are you just training with the team most days?”

“Indeed. It is wonderful. We fight like true allies, now,” Thor said, enthusiastically. “I must say, Lady Darcy, your James is a most skilled combatant. He has been educating me in the art of krav maga.”

Darcy smirked at Thor’s admiration for Bucky- it was cute. “That’s awesome. It’s good you two are getting along.”

“I believe he is an excellent addition to our team. I had not spoken to him before he contacted me about visiting the facility early-”

Darcy did a double-take. “What do you mean?”

“Sergeant Barnes contacted me and explained that he had an urgent and secret matter that required our assistance. I was happy to aid Steve’s shield-brother, of course,” Thor explained.

Darcy was aware that she was staring at Thor with her mouth open. “Oh. I thought Steve asked you to come early.”

Thor shook his head. “Steve is not aware of our little secret, correct?” He said, winking at Pip who was perched on a nearby desk. Pip immediately winked back. The flirt.

“Right. Yeah, Bucky said we should keep it between the four of us.”

“That might not be possible,” Jane piped up, peering fiercely at a simulation on her laptop. Darcy hoped it wasn’t a prototype for a machine to send her home, because there were a lot of explosions happening on screen.

“Um, why?”

“I can figure out the psychics for this, and even do some of the non-theoretical work. But I think the technical aspect is going to go above and beyond what I know,” Jane explained, pausing the video and looking up at Darcy apologetically. “I think I’m going to have to call in Stark,” she added grimly.

“Uh oh,” Darcy muttered. In her world, Tony Stark had ended up blabbing his own status as Iron Man to a packed press conference. He didn’t seem like a hot contender for Secret-Keeper of the Year.

Thor looked downright amused by her expression.

“I still have a lot of calculations to figure out. I’ll put off contacting Stark for as long as possible,” Jane promised.

Darcy was thankful for that. After making sure Jane had whatever info she needed, Darcy and Pip said their goodbyes, and headed for Bucky’s room. It was earlier than they’d normally have dinner, so she wasn’t sure if he’d actually be around.

She was in luck. Judging by the gleam of sweat on his skin, he’d just arrived back from some form of exercise. When Bucky attempted to hug and kiss her, Darcy laughed, shoving him towards his bathroom.

“You’re gross,” she said, nose wrinkled.

Bucky just laughed. “Okay, gorgeous. I’ll go clean up. Watch some TV, if you want.”

Because Bucky was an Avenger, he had a bedroom, a proper bathroom, and a living room complete with a tiny kitchenette composed of a sink, a microwave and a fridge-freezer.

Darcy flopped down on the couch, not bothering to put on the TV. She hadn’t watched any in the three weeks since she’d been here, and frankly she thought the detox was doing wonders for her.

“Are you going to tell him?” Pip whispered after a few minutes. He’d taken up position on the back of the couch, so he was peering down at her.

“Tell him what?”

Pip swished his tail. “That Tony Stark might be visiting soon.”

“Why would I need to tell him that? I’m sure he’s met Stark, given that SI is bankrolling this whole place.”

“But Stark will be involved with sending _us_ back. What if he passes information onto Fury?” Pip pointed out. Darcy frowned.  She hadn’t even considered that.

“Alright. I’ll tell him later-”

“Tell me what?”

Darcy jumped, sitting up on the couch and peering over the back of it to see Bucky standing in the doorway with a towel wrapped around his hips, his skin still damp from the shower.

“Uhhh…” Darcy’s brain had obviously disconnected.

Pip sighed at his horndog of a human. “Dr Foster thinks she’ll need Tony Stark to help her make the machines to send us back,” he explained, completely unfazed by Bucky’s state of undress.

Even Darcy escaped her haze of lust long enough to notice the sharp frown that tilted Bucky’s brow when Pip said the words ‘Tony Stark.’

“Um is that bad?” Darcy asked, trying not to stare at Bucky’s fabulously muscled torso too much. It was really difficult.

She wasn’t sure if Bucky was trying to kill her when he raised his flesh arm and ran a hand through his hair.

“It’s not bad,” Bucky sighed, “Stark just ain’t my biggest fan.” His eyes were looking anywhere but at her.

“How come?”

“Look, lemme get changed, and we’ll talk, okay? It’s kinda a long story, and it ain’t too warm out here.”

“That’s because you aren’t wearing any clothes,” Pip pointed out tartly.

Bucky looked down at himself, as if just realising that he was covered by only a smallish white towel. He glanced up at Darcy, a faint blush showing on his cheeks until he realised that she was practically drooling over his couch. He shot her a panty-dropping grin before slowly turning and sauntering towards his bedroom. The way the muscles of his back moved as he walked was a work of art.

When Darcy continued to stare blankly at the space Bucky had just vacated, Pip prodded her chin with the tip of his tail.

“Hello? Any sign of intelligent life in there?”

Darcy snorted, swatting his tail away.

“Shut up, Pip. I can’t help it that he’s insanely attractive,” she whispered, clearly not wanting Bucky to hear her. Pip thought it was a bit late for her to be worrying- Bucky already _knew_ that she was smitten on him.

“Is he an Adonis, too?” Pip asked, genuinely curious. He supposed Bucky was of a similar size to Captain America, but they didn’t look much alike, as far as he could tell.

“Yep. Muscles for days,” Darcy sighed, smiling to herself.

Pip hopped onto her shoulder. “Are you going to have sex with him?” he inquired.

Darcy tutted. “Pip! Don’t ask that!”

He tilted his head. “Why?”

Darcy scrubbed at her reddened cheeks. “Because I don’t know, okay?”

“Do you want to? I think you do.”

“You’re so embarrassing. Yes, I want to. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to get more involved with him,” Darcy murmured, as quietly as possible. She still wasn’t sure how good Bucky’s hearing was.

Pip, sensing her unease, decided to let it drop.

Darcy and Bucky ended up having dinner right on his couch. The less time spent in the canteen, the better. Darcy was sick of everyone gawking in their direction.

She polished off her plate of pasta in record time, but frowned when she realised Bucky was still pushing most of his around the plate.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, laying a hand on his arm. Bucky’s pale eyes flickered to her face, his mouth tight.

“I said I’d tell you more about me and Stark,” he began, voice tense.

“Okay…” Darcy nodded, encouraging him to continue.

“He hates me because I killed his parents.” The words fell into the silence of the room like knives.

“Oh,” Darcy mumbled weakly. She had _not_ been expecting that.

Bucky grimaced. “It was Hydra. They sent me to kill Howard and his wife in 1991. Stark found out about it when I resurfaced a couple of years ago, and it got ugly real quick.”

“He blamed you?” Darcy was shocked. She didn’t know the full story behind how Hydra had manipulated the Winter Soldier, but she had read a few files from her hacker buddies. It had been tough reading.

“Yes. And I don’t think he’s wrong,” Bucky admitted. When Darcy opened her mouth to protest, he smiled sadly and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “Of course I didn’t _want_ to do it. I liked Howard. But I understand from Stark’s point of view…I’m still the guy that killed his Mom and Dad. There’s no changing that fact.”

Darcy felt awful. Bucky’s expression was heavy with grief and she just wanted to make it better. She scooted herself closer to him, wrapping herself around his left arm and resting her head on his shoulder.

“Will he give you trouble, if he comes here?”

Bucky shook his head, smiling at her. “I’ll just do my best to avoid him.”

 _Men_ , Darcy thought. “How does that work on missions?”

She felt Bucky’s chest move when he shrugged. “Dunno. We’ve never been rostered together. There’s a reason for that.”

“It’ll happen someday,” Darcy predicted. If there was another ‘earth-ending’ incident, surely they’d need the whole Avengers team to step up?

Bucky curled his arm around her shoulder. “Maybe. Usually Hawkeye teams up with him. Barton’s a hell of a marksman.”

“Is that what you do? You’re a sniper?” She recalled that Bucky Barnes had been a prolific sniper during the Second World War.

Bucky nodded. “Generally, yeah. It’s what I’m trained for. I’m skilled at hand-to-hand, obviously, but I prefer to keep at a distance these days.”

Darcy smiled. It was nice to learn more about him. Bucky took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling beneath her head.

“Speaking of missions, I’m going out tomorrow.”

Darcy sat back. “Oh.” She was on mission surveillance for twelve hours tomorrow. She’d be monitoring him. It made her feel sick.

Bucky, no doubt sensing her panic, stroked her hair back from her face and smiled. “I’ll be fine, doll. It’s a minor job, and I’m just back up,” he assured her.

“Who’re you going with?”

“Steve and Sam.” That was good, she decided. Sam was air support, and Steve would _always_ make sure Bucky was safe.

She managed a smirk. “Then I _suppose_ I give you permission to go save the world,” she joked, kissing him.

Bucky hummed. “Why thank you, sweetheart.”

“Promise you’ll be careful,” Darcy whispered,  no longer joking.

Bucky looked her in the eye. “I promise,” he said, solemnly.

Darcy supposed that’s all she could ask for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I know a few people were looking forward to the Darcy/Jane meet up, so I hope it didn't disappoint!  
> 2) This fic is not going to have a 'Darcy gets kidnapped by the new SHIELD' plot line. Bucky is making sure of it ;)  
> 3) I really adore Helen Cho so I had to give her a little bit of love here!
> 
> Thanks so much for the amazing feedback :D


	5. Part the Fifth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spoilers if anyone hasn't read His Dark Materials...sorry!**
> 
>  
> 
> If you haven't read that series and don't care about spoiling it for yourself I'd maybe suggest having a quick read of the Wikipedia summary of the final book. You might be confused about what Darcy and Bucky discuss towards the end of this chapter, otherwise.

The next day was the worst that Darcy had experienced since landing in this world.

She had been tense all through the mission surveillance, even though she had technically been focussed on monitoring Sam Wilson. She didn’t doubt that Hill had made sure she wasn’t on Team Bucky, which was just as well really, because shit had gotten out of hand _fast_.

What had been a sedate mission to a supposedly abandoned AIM factory led to dozens of frightening and highly durable creatures stampeding around the Mexican countryside. The only plus point was that the area was lightly populated, but it didn’t stop the creepy, grey-skinned creatures making a beeline for the nearest grouping of houses and terrorising the residents.

A lot of shouting and panic ended in Thor being deployed last minute. The creatures could fly, which meant that Bucky and Steve were at a distinct disadvantage, not least because the creatures had the alarming ability to damage vibranium. Cap’s shield had earned a huge set of score marks from one of the thing’s claws before the team caught on.  

Darcy’s heart was in her throat because instead of hanging back, Bucky continued to engage the creatures any time they touched down on the ground, doing his best to keep his prosthetic away from them.

When Thor arrived, electrocuting as many of the creatures as he could in one go, Darcy had breathed a sigh of relief. She directed Falcon to start herding the flying creatures into a line up so that Thor could take care of them.

Then she heard the scream of agony, audible even through Sam’s comms.

It was Bucky.

One of the creatures was clinging to his arm. It looked as though it were trying to pull the arm off, or at the very least damage the network of vibranium plates. Darcy knew that the arm wasn’t a simple prosthetic- it was linked to Bucky’s nervous system, and he had almost as much sensation in it as his flesh arm. Because it was holding Bucky captive, Thor didn’t dare attempt to fry it. Darcy watched helplessly through Sam’s surveillance camera as the creature went airborne, dragging a writhing Bucky with it. Bucky’s shouts were getting worse and worse, but the rest of the team were confounded. Sam couldn’t risk shooting, in case he hit Bucky. Thor was similarly stymied.

Mercifully, Cap figured it out. He swung his shield at the distracted creature, managing to hit it in the head.

Unfortunately, the shield also clipped Bucky’s temple, and he was limp as he fell to the ground.

Sam twisted into a speedy dive, catching Bucky just inches above the ground. Thor fried the stunned creature, and Darcy almost cried with relief.

But she couldn’t let herself crumble. She had to organise clean-up and liaise with the Mexican authorities. It was the last thing she wanted to do. Thor had left Steve and Sam to take the quinjet back to the facility. Bucky needed urgent medical attention, and Thor was faster than the quinjet.

After a painful hour of not knowing what was going on, Hill excused Darcy. Bucky had come around, with thanks to Cho’s incredible machine.

But he wasn’t out of the woods. His prosthetic was damaged, possibly beyond repair. As Cho explained to a frazzled Darcy, her machine could heal almost any flesh wound, but it couldn’t repair the mechanics of Bucky’s metal arm.

Bucky had been moved to a private medical bay. He was lying in the bed, his tack gear having been swapped for hospital scrubs. He looked pale and tired, lying against the white sheets.

“Bucky,” Darcy called quietly, edging into the room and shutting the door firmly behind her.

His head turned, his features immediately relaxing into a faint smile when he registered who was speaking to him.

Darcy perched carefully on the edge of the bed, by his right side, and leaned up to stroke the tangled hair away from his forehead. There wasn’t any sign of a lump or bump from the shield. Cho’s machine did good work. His metal arm was mangled and gouged out in places. Darcy felt queasy looking at it.

 Pip leaned out of her pocket, nose twitching. “Are you okay?” He asked. He had been just as distressed as Darcy, but he’d had to stay hidden away in her pocket.

Bucky smiled, his eyelids heavy. “I’ll survive, Pip. Thanks.”

“Well, good,” Pip decided, hopping down onto the bed and settling on the pillow by Bucky’s head.

Darcy looked down at Bucky. He was trying to smile at her but his face was tight with pain.

“Did Cho give you some pain meds?” She asked softly.

Bucky nodded. “They don’t do much,” he admitted. Darcy bit her lip.

“What about your arm?”

Bucky sighed. “Cho can’t do anything about that. Stark’s on his way.”

Darcy raised her eyebrows. “He’s about the only person in these parts who has the knowledge to fix it,” Bucky added. He didn’t look as though he were happy about that.

Darcy shifted, laying her hand on his chest. His heart thumped strongly beneath her palm.

“You really scared me there,” she murmured. ‘Scared’ was an understatement. Darcy had never been so frightened in her life, and she’d faced down the Destroyer _and_ Dark Elves.

Bucky blinked rapidly, his eyes shining as he looked at her. “When that thing grabbed me…all I could think about was you, and how I’d promised you that I’d stay safe. I’m sorry, doll.”

Darcy looked down, swallowing back her tears. “You’re forgiven, of course,” she assured him, leaning forward to kiss his forehead, the tip of his nose, and finally his lips. When Bucky immediately tried to deepen the kiss, she pulled back, smiling.

Bucky pouted. “You’re going to deny a bed-ridden man a proper kiss?”

Darcy laughed, stroking his cheek. “You know if we get started, we’ll never stop. You need to rest.” Bucky huffed. It amazed her how easily he could go from hunky man to sulking child.

“I’ll stay right here, okay?” She promised, pulling an armchair right up against the bed so that she could lean on the mattress and hold his hand.

“Okay,” Bucky conceded, his eyes already drooping. Whatever Cho had given him, it was a strong soporific.

Darcy and Pip spent the next couple of hours dozing lightly. Bucky slept deeply the entire time, not even moving a muscle. She figured that was just as well; she didn’t like to imagine how painful it would be if he rolled onto his left arm while sleeping.

Just when Darcy was beginning to wonder how long it could possibly take Tony Stark to fly out from NYC, the door of the hospital room clicked open.

“Hello, Darcy.” It was Cho. Pip scuttled inconspicuously across the sheets, darting into Darcy’s shirt pocket.

Darcy waved wearily. “Hi.”

“I’m sorry to chase you off, but Mr Stark is here, and we need to wake Bucky.”

Darcy grimaced, heaving herself out of the comfy chair. She didn’t let go of Bucky’s hand, though.

“Okay. But I want to be here when Bucky wakes up. He might be…upset.” Darcy didn’t know if Cho knew about Stark and Bucky’s history, and she didn’t want to be the one to blab.

Cho smiled sympathetically. “Of course.” She turned her head, speaking out into the corridor. “Mr Stark?”

About five seconds later Darcy was standing face to face with the richest man on Earth. Well, he was certainly the richest man on Earth in ‘her’ world. Judging by the fact that he was bankrolling this entire facility, Darcy reckoned he was pretty rich here, too.

“Who are you? That’s not much of a nurse’s uniform,” he said, the words falling rapidly from his tongue. He didn’t wait for her to answer, instead strolling further into the room.

Darcy clenched Bucky’s hand tight. Cho had left the room.

“I’m not a nurse,” she replied, eventually.

Tony Stark smirked. “Bummer. You’d be like a fantasy coming to life.”

Darcy blinked, staring blankly at him. On another day, she might have laughed or shot a barb back at him. Today, though? Today she was too drained to muster up enthusiasm for anything.

Stark fidgeted slightly under her steady gaze. “So, tin man wrecked his arm?” He said, circling the bed and peering at Bucky’s exposed prosthetic.

“No. Some sort of lab monster wrecked his arm,” Darcy retorted. Stark raised an eyebrow at her, and Darcy returned the gesture.

“Who did you say you were?” Stark pressed, staring at her intently from behind the bright red lenses of his sunglasses.

Darcy mustered up a faint smirk. “I didn’t.”

Before Stark could volley back, Cho bustled into the room with a couple of assistants. She asked Darcy to step away, and proceeded to gently shake Bucky’s good shoulder. He didn’t stir.

“Hmmm…I’m surprised that the medication had such a strong effect on him,” she noted.

“Why?” Darcy blurted out with concern. She didn’t realise that she maybe shouldn’t have interrupted until Cho’s fellow doctors turned to look at her disapprovingly.

Cho, on the other hand, just smiled at her. “I’ve given a similar dose to Steve, in the past. It caused him to sleep lightly for half an hour, no more.”

“Well tin man doesn’t have the same juice as Cap,” Stark interjected, fiddling with his tie.

Ignoring that comment, Cho injected Bucky with a small syringe. He grunted, quickly coming around.

“Darcy?” His voice was rough and filled with panic.

“I’m here,” she said, approaching the bed so that he could see her. Bucky literally sighed in relief. His eyes darted to the side.

“Stark,” he muttered, nodding his head.

“You’ve made a right mess of this,” Tony replied, gesturing to the bionic arm.

The corners of Bucky’s mouth curled up. “If you don’t think you can fix it-”

“Woah! Hey, slow your roll, old man. There’s nothing techy that I can’t get a handle on.”

Dr Cho interjected, introducing her colleagues and explaining the procedure to Bucky. It sounded awful.

“Do you have anaesthetic?” Darcy asked.

Cho nodded. “Yes, but I’m not sure how effective it will be. Steve has agreed to stay in theatre, in case…”

“In case I lose it,” Bucky surmised, darkly.

“In case you wake up and are in a lot of pain,” Cho argued. Steve was the only person who’d be able to hold Bucky in place long enough to let Cho and Stark figure out how to correct the damage to the mechanical arm _and_ Bucky’s nervous system.

Darcy thought she might puke, but she pushed it down, leaning over to brush a kiss to Bucky’s cheek. “Do you want me to come with you?” she breathed, for his ears only.

Bucky’s eyes softened. “No sweetheart. I don’t want you to see that. You go rest and get something to eat. It’s been a long day for you.”

Darcy pushed her hair behind her ears, very aware that everyone in the room was watching their little tableau. “Okay,” she conceded, throwing caution to the wind and kissing him on the lips.

She blinked away tears as Cho and the other doctors wheeled him away for the surgery. Bucky mustered a pathetic smile and waved as they went out the door. Darcy’s chest felt tight, and all she wanted to do was cuddle with Pip.

But she couldn’t, because Tony Stark hadn’t left the room.

Darcy turned to look at him expectantly. Stark had removed his glasses, and his dark eyes watched her shrewdly. “So. You’re Barnes’ new squeeze.” It wasn’t a question. Darcy knew he was saying it that way just to get a rise out of her, implying that Bucky had a ‘new squeeze’ often, when Darcy knew that wasn’t the case at all.

“Looks like it,” she replied neutrally.

“How’d you meet?” Darcy raised an eyebrow at that. As if he actually cared.

“I work here. I’m Hill’s assistant.”

A flicker of understanding crossed Stark’s face, and Darcy forgot too late that he had been instrumental in hiring her. Hell, he was technically _her boss._

“Darcy Lewis. Yeah, I remember your CV. Hill wanted you and no one else, even though there were better qualified candidates,” he mused, shoving his hands in his pockets.

That was news to Darcy. “Well, I hope she doesn’t regret her choice.”

Stark nodded thoughtfully. “She know you're Barnes’ girl?”

“It’s hard to keep something like that secret in a place like this,” Darcy pointed out. She wasn’t giving him anything.

Stark stared at her for a moment longer, before turning on his heel and striding out of the room.

Darcy took a deep breath. Her heart was hammering. She had expected him to ask about Bucky’s soulmark at any moment. She didn’t know what she would’ve said if he had.

 

*****

 

Bucky’s surgery had been a huge success, so _of course_ Darcy was delighted and relieved.

The only drawback was that he was on strict orders to attend two hours of physio every day, and he wasn’t allowed to spar or train in the Avenger’s gym until his physiotherapist gave him the go ahead.

And who laid down those mandates?

Captain America, of course.

“That little punk. I’ve been saving his ass practically his entire life, and he does this to me?” Bucky had complained, not three hours after he’d come out of surgery. Cho had insisted on keeping him in the medbay overnight, so Darcy had set up camp to keep him company. She had managed to nap a little when she heard the surgery had been successful, but then Bucky had immediately demanded that she be allowed to visit.

So there she sat, smiling to herself as Bucky ranted in between bites of the dinner she had brought along for him.

“He’s just concerned about you. That was some serious damage to your arm, and if you jump right back into your usual rough-housing, you could undo everything Stark and Cho did.”

Bucky stared at her incredulously. “‘Rough-housing?’ You mean _training?_ ”

Pip snorted. He was hanging on the bars of Bucky’s hospital bed. “Same thing.”

Bucky glowered at the tiny dormouse, who just smirked back. Pip had been super dozy during Bucky’s surgery, but he seemed to have perked up. He’d been sleeping more than usual of late anyway, but Darcy assumed it was just her stress manifesting in his little body.

Darcy sighed. “Just take it easy for a few days, do whatever your physio recommends and you’ll be back on the roster in no time,” she assured him, handing him a glass of water.

“I’m gonna be bored stupid,” he protested.

“Too late for that,” Pip muttered, squealing with laughter and darting to Darcy’s chest when Bucky made a lazy swipe at him.

“Don’t insult the invalid,” she chided, stroking Pip’s back and kissing his soft, furry head.

Bucky groaned. “You’re both horrible to me. Why did I want you in here?”

“Maybe you’re still high on the anaesthetic,” she joked. Thankfully, Cho et al had figured out a hefty enough dose to keep Bucky down for a couple of hours, which was long enough for them to fix the damaged neural connections in his shoulder. Stark’s work on the mechanics had taken another five hours, but Bucky was awake for it, and only slightly in pain.

Bucky grunted. “Yeah, must be.” He polished off the remains of his dinner, and Darcy called for a nurse to take the trays away.

“Stark asked me about you,” she confessed, when they were alone again. Bucky raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah? What’d he say?”

Darcy laughed humorlessly. “Asked me if I was your ‘new squeeze.’”

Bucky snorted. “Asshole.”

“Yep. He didn’t know who I was, but I kinda gave the game away when I said I was Hill’s assistant,” she admitted, a little sheepish.

“I wouldn’t worry about. I’m not saying you should go blabbing to him about your condition unless it’s necessary, but I doubt he’d pass any info onto Hill. He might have hired her, but he knows she still reports to Fury, and he and Stark don’t exactly get along.”

Darcy nodded. At least they didn’t have to actively worry about Stark ratting her out to SHIELD.

Belly full, Bucky fell asleep within twenty minutes, snoring lightly.

Smiling, Darcy climbed into the bed next to his, trying to get comfortable in the strange room. Pip curled up next to her face and was out like a light.

Darcy lay awake for hours, her mind churning aimlessly and wondering how she was ever going to leave this world.

 

*****

 

“Do dæmons get sick?”

Bucky, still banned from training with the team, had taken to loitering in her office whenever she was completing paperwork. It had only been five days since his operation, but Darcy could tell that he was already itching to get back into the fray.

She saved the document she was working on and turned to stare at him. He was slumped over the far end of her desk, half watching her, half staring out the window. Pip was asleep, curled up in a cute little ball in her lap.

“Why are you asking that?” she said, wincing at the sharpness in her tone. She looked down at Pip. She didn’t know if she was being paranoid, but she felt like there was something wrong with him. He was more exhausted than ever. The previous day, he had probably slept for about sixteen hours out of twenty four. Sure, he had always enjoyed a midday nap, but this was extreme. When Darcy asked Pip about it, he just said that he felt sleepy, and chided her for worrying.

Bucky shrugged. “Just curious.”

“As always,” Darcy added, smiling softly at him. “No, dæmons don’t get sick. They can be affected by our emotions, but not by our physical health.”

“Huh.” Bucky looked thoughtful.

“When their human dies, a dæmon just sort of…fades away,” Darcy explained, putting him out of his misery.

“So a dæmon can’t live without their human?”

Darcy chewed her lip, considering. “I don’t think so. I’ve certainly never heard of anything like that in real life.”

“In those Pullman books, there are humans whose dæmons have been taken from them,” Bucky said.

Darcy unconsciously laid her hand on Pip’s warm little body. “Hmm…I just don’t know if that would actually work, y’know? Not that anyone would want to find out,” she said, well aware that she wasn’t being entirely truthful.

The Winter Soldier had no dæmon. At least, not one that had to be close by him. There were always stories about someone who knew someone who knew someone that could stretch the bond between themselves and their dæmon for up to a mile, but Darcy had never seen it with her own eyes, so she didn’t believe it.

Bucky just nodded. Darcy suspected that he wanted to discuss the books more, but that he knew whatever he had to say would upset her.

“Did you read all of those books?” she asked, reaching out to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind his ear. Bucky grasped her wrist, pressing a feather-light kiss to her palm.

“Yeah. They were pretty good,” he admitted. “Sad ending, though.” Bucky looked away from her.

“Oh?”

He sighed. “Yeah, but it made sense, I guess.” He sounded sad, weary. Almost…resigned, but to what, Darcy had no idea.

When she raised her eyebrows, encouraging him to continue, Bucky laughed stiffly. “I don’t want to spoil the story. Maybe someday you’ll read it.”

The depth of emotion in his eyes scared her. Darcy painted a vague smile on her lips. “Maybe.”

She wanted to ask him about the ending of the story. She wanted to ask him about what happened to people whose soulmate had died. But she didn’t ask either, because she was a coward who didn’t want to make him anymore miserable than he already was.

Darcy cast around for a new topic of conversation. “So, how’re things going with Mike?”

Bucky shrugged, grimacing, and slumped in his chair. “I was good to go by day two. I’ve been lugging this arm around for seventy years- I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled, lifting his newly-repaired prosthetic.

For some odd reason Darcy found his sulking quite charming. Maybe it was because he frowned a little and pouted those lovely pink lips of his. Yeah, that was it.

“You’d better do as he says, and stay on his good side. Steve will be asking him for the verdict on your progress, not you,” she reminded him, turning back to her desktop.

Bucky sighed, mumbling a few expletives under his breath. “I know, I know.”

“What about your arm? Did Stark fix the kinks?” The fingers on Bucky’s left hand had been stiff and lethargic for a couple of days after the surgery. Stark had made a few tweaks to the inner workings that morning.

Bucky flexed his hand in demonstration. “Running smooth as clockwork,” he assured her, throwing in a wink. Considering that he almost never touched her with the prosthetic, he sure did enjoy throwing in an innuendo any time she mentioned it.

Maybe he had noticed her watching it with a combination of curiosity and attraction. There was just something…sexy about it. If not for the fact that she didn’t want to be physically intimate with Bucky when she was planning to up and leave him forever, she would’ve been all over experimenting with that arm in bed.

But she had to be strong. Sleeping with Bucky would just be the final nail in the coffin of her sanity, and her emotions. She was already so attached to him, but sex seemed like crossing a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.

Jane called her to the lab late that afternoon. Bucky trailed along, because he had nowhere better to be, but when they walked in and saw Stark standing next to Jane, he looked like he regretted not finding something else to do.

Stark, it seemed, had come snooping around Jane’s lab, and he was eager to know what exactly she was up to. As Jane technically worked for Stark Industries, she was between a rock and a hard place.

“I thought it might be best if you explained to Tony,” she said, staring at Darcy beseechingly. Stark crossed his arms, watching her with interest.

Darcy threw caution to the wind. She knew Jane was rapidly running out of ideas, and if Stark could help, then she needed him on board.

“I’m not from this world.”

“You’re an alien,” Stark interrupted, with conviction.

Bucky frowned at him.

“No. I’m from Earth, but not _this_ Earth. I’m from a parallel universe,” Darcy explained, patiently.

So began the show and tell. Stark blanched at her blank forearm, just as Bucky and Jane had. Darcy thought she might have seen Stark’s expression soften just a smidge when he saw Pip. Her dæmon was feeling uncharacteristically shy, though, and refused to speak in front of them. Pip didn’t behave like a normal mouse, even when he was silent, so Stark was satisfied that he wasn’t being pranked.

After a volley of questions about ‘Darcy’s’ world, Stark abruptly turned to Bucky, who was skulking over by the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“I could’ve sworn she was your soulmate, Terminator,” he said, without malice. Still, the tension in the room was palpable.

It looked like Bucky wasn’t going to say anything, but just as Stark seemed ready to give up on getting a reaction, he blurted: “She said my words. I didn’t say hers, obviously.”

Stark’s eyes widened. “Huh. Never heard of that before,” he mused. There was compassion in his gaze when he glanced between Bucky and Darcy, but it was gone in a blink.

“Okay, Foster. Let’s get to work. Tinman and E.T., you’re free to go,” Stark declared, shucking off his leather jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his ACDC shirt.

Bucky muttered goodbye, his hand hovering over Darcy’s back as they left.

“Not an alien,” Darcy reminded Stark, waving to the two scientists. They were already glued to Jane’s computer screen, talking a mile a minute.

“What’s an E.T.?” Bucky muttered, leaning closer to her as they stepped outside. The sun was shining and birds were chirping away happily in the trees.

Darcy giggled, keeping pace with him. “It’s a film about an alien who comes to Earth and gets adopted by a human family. It’s really cute. I’m surprised no one’s made you watch it, yet. It’s a bit of a cult classic."

“Huh.”

“You have a TV in your suite, right? We could watch it sometime, if you want,” she suggested.

Bucky grinned down at her. “How about tonight?”

“Sure thing. I just need to call my Dad at like seven, but that shouldn’t take long.”

They were walking their usual route around the perimeter. It was pretty scenic, and gave them the sort of privacy that you just couldn’t find in the facility.

“How is he?” Bucky asked.

“He’s okay. He’s so involved in the Church, and with his golf. Honestly, I think he’s doing pretty well, even without Mom,” she admitted. Although she had initially flipped out to learn that her mother in ‘this’ world was dead, Darcy had managed to come to terms with it in the past few weeks. She _was_ going home, and she _was_ going to see her Mom again. The Virginia Lewis who had died here wasn’t _really_ her Mom. At least, that argument was the only thing that stopped Darcy from crying daily, but it did make her feel sorry for the Darcy Lewis from this world- wherever she was at the moment.

“That’s good.” Bucky gently ghosted a hand over her hair. He was pretty careful not to be too touchy-feely with her unless they were well away from prying eyes. She knew he was just trying to protect her, but Darcy was fairly sure that anyone would know how they felt about each other with just a glance.

With that in mind, Darcy subtly reached for Bucky’s hand, twining her fingers through his. He grinned down at her, giving her hand a light squeeze.

 

*****

 

The day after watching _E.T._ with Bucky, his trainer reported to Cap that he was in good shape. Bucky was delighted to be able to train with the team again, and Darcy suddenly found herself without a six-foot tall shadow. Much as his sulking presence had been distracting for five days, Darcy found she actually missed spending all her time with him.

Feeling bored, Darcy made the mistake of going back and reading the Pullman books on her phone. At first, she just enjoyed the storyline, and especially Lyra’s relationship with her Pantalaimon. The books were pretty short, and Darcy’s workload was light for the time being, so she tore through the series in a few days.

When she had clicked through the third and final book, her chest had constricted. She knew why Bucky had seemed sad when he spoke about ‘the ending’. Will and Lyra were in love, but they were from separate worlds, so they couldn’t be together. It was a bit too on the nose for Darcy’s comfort, and she spent almost ten minutes fighting back tears.

Pip, awakened by her distress, nuzzled against her hand. “What’s wrong?”

“The Pullman books. The ending…it’s like me and Bucky. The two characters want to be together, but they can’t,” she explained, her voice trembling with suppressed tears. She knew if she allowed herself to get more worked up, Bucky would sense it and come running. She didn’t want to talk about this with him; it was too hard.

Pip scurried up her arm, nestling at her neck. Touching him calmed her in a way nothing else did. She couldn’t imagine not having him always with her.

“Pip, are you feeling okay?” she asked, finally addressing the elephant in the room.

Pip huffed out a quiet sigh. “I’m really tired. All the time. Sleeping doesn’t even seem to make a difference,” he admitted.

Darcy felt a hot bolt of panic surge through her gut. “Have you ever felt that way before?”

“No.”

In the books, Will’s dæmon couldn’t follow him back to his world, because they didn’t have dæmons there. At least, not dæmons you could _see._

“What if being here is making you sleepy?”

Pip’s voice was soft. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible.”

Darcy bit her lip. She didn’t exactly have anyone who could consult on the matter, but she figured a visit to Jane and Stark wouldn’t hurt.

When she arrived at the lab, her ears almost bled from the volume of the rock music blaring from the speakers in the ceiling. Tony Stark was in a far corner, a pair of tinted goggles on his face as he welded parts of a bizarre-looking machine together. Jane was bent over her laptop, typing furiously with a look of utmost concentration on her face.

“Should we just go?” Pip muttered, pressing his paws over his ears.

Darcy shook her head, approaching Jane and giving her a little shake when she didn’t respond. The physicist jumped, whirling round to face Darcy and pulling plugs out of her ears.

“Darcy, you startled me!”

“Yeah, sorry. I should’ve known you wouldn’t hear me,” Darcy replied, practically yelling just to be heard over the sound of Guns n Roses.

Jane glanced over at Stark, rolling her eyes. “Friday, pause the music, please,” she said, addressing the ceiling.

Suddenly the room was silent save for Tony Stark’s off-key singing.

“… _You gotta give the other fella_ \- hey!” He cried, looking affronted.

“How can you concentrate with that noise, Tony?” Jane chided.

“Because I’m a genius,” he replied simply, setting down his tools and flipping up his glasses. “How’s it going, E.T.?”

Darcy grimaced. “Actually, not great. I think there’s something wrong with Pip, but we don’t know what. Do you…do you think it could be because we’re not from _here?”_ she asked, unsure of which answer she wanted.

Jane pursed her lips and stared off into space. Stark shucked off his welder’s gloves and took a big swig of a hideously green shake.

Darcy watched them both expectantly. 

“Obviously this is all unprecedented,” Jane began, hesitantly.

“But the fact is, we don’t _have_ dæmons here. It’s possible that this dimension is trying to correct the…anomaly,” Stark concluded, shrugging.

Darcy’s hand flew unconsciously up to Pip, holding him against her chest so that their hearts were beating together.

She looked at Jane, who was glaring at Tony. “What do you think?”

“It’s possible,” Jane said, gently.

Darcy sucked in a deep breath. She couldn’t cope with this. “Are you making any progress?”

Jane nodded enthusiastically, looking grateful that Darcy had thrown her a line.

“Yes! As I expected, Tony knows what he’s doing-”

“Duh!” interjected the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

“-At the moment I’m working on isolating multiverses, and trying to comb through them for any markers that might denote an imbalance.”

“Imbalance?” Darcy queried.

Stark pointed a wrench at her. “You. You’re the imbalance.”

Darcy frowned.

“Look,” Jane beckoned her over the computer. Darcy peered down at the screen, It was a lot of wiggling lines of various colours, like wavelengths.

“Okay, this is the dimension we’re in right now,” Jane explained, pointing out the volatile movements of the waves.

“And _this_ , is what it should look like.” This image looked…calmer, more fluid than the one Jane had first shown her.

“Where is that?”

Jane looked up at her. “That’s what the astral readings normally look like for this dimension. I recorded this data about four months ago, trying to build a bridge to Vanaheim,” Jane explained, completely blasé about the incredible things she was capable of achieving.

“And that’s why she won the Nobel,” Stark said.

Darcy’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow. Congratulations!”

Jane looked a bit bashful. “Thanks. It was a dream come true.”

“I’ll bet,” Darcy murmured, feeling really happy that Jane was getting proper acknowledgement from the scientific community. If only ‘her’ Jane was treated so well!

Darcy looked at the images again. “So, me being here is changing the make-up of this dimension?”

“Pretty much,” Stark agreed.

“That’s not to say that it’s doing any damage, or that it’s going to be a long term effect. We just don’t know at this point, but the good news is that it gives me something to look for. When I find a dimension that has similar patterns, we’ll run a test phase, see if we can get a window through to it.”

That sounded risky to Darcy- what if there were aggressive aliens on the other side?

Well, she supposed, the Avengers _had_ dealt with that before.

“Okay, thanks. I’ll get out of your hair,” she said finally. It was good to see that they were making progress, but her heart was heavy with the thought that this universe was trying to do away with Pip.

 

*****

 

After finishing up with dinner and an episode of _Breaking_ Bad, Darcy decided to tell Bucky about what Jane and Stark had said. He looked like someone had just slapped him.

“Are you serious?” he breathed, glancing down at Pip, who was asleep on the couch between them.

Darcy’s eyes stung with tears. “Yeah. Obviously they don’t _know_ for certain, but he’s never been like this before.”

Bucky rubbed his right hand over his mouth. “Shit.”

They both watched Pip for a moment. His little paws contracted and released, as if he were grabbing something in his dreams.

“Maybe it’s not a bad thing. Maybe he’s… adapting to this world, or something,” Bucky suggested, grasping at straws. When Darcy looked at him, his eyes were bright with desperation.

Darcy shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. I’m not meant to be here-”

“Don’t say that!” Bucky stood up abruptly, pacing over the window of his living room. It was the first time Darcy had ever heard anger in his voice.

She sighed, pulling herself off the sofa and going to stand next to him. His hair was hanging in his face, hiding it. “I know you don’t like hearing it,” she whispered, carefully resting her hand on his back. The muscles were bunched and taut. “But it’s true.”

A sob wrenched its way out of Bucky’s chest; Darcy felt it reverberate through her palm. She pressed up against his side, doing her best to wrap her arms around him.

“It isn’t _fair,_ ” he murmured, voice thick with tears.

Darcy clenched her teeth, hard. It would be no good if they both started crying.

“I know.”

Bucky took a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s not supposed to be like this. We’re supposed to be _together_.”

The emotion in his voice grabbed Darcy’s heart and _squeezed_.

“No,” she said, firmly. “We’re like Lyra and Will. I wish we weren’t, but we _are-_ ”

Bucky turned in her arms, breaking her hold. He stared down at her, tears clumping on his dark lashes. His eyes were bloodshot, and the irises looked bluer than ever as they bored into hers.

“We don’t _have_ to be like them,” he argued, voice soft.

Darcy hesitated, not sure what he meant by that.

Bucky gently cupped her face in his palm. “Can you feel that?” he said softly. “How…how _right_ it is when I touch you? It feels the same for me.”

Darcy swallowed audibly, blinking back tears as she stared up into Bucky’s beautiful eyes.

She just didn’t get it. She couldn’t understand how she’d fallen so hopelessly in love with him in such a short amount of time. Maybe that soulmate malarkey wasn’t malarkey at all.

“Yes,” she admitted, the word coming of its own volition. Bucky pressed his forehead against hers.

“You see? That’s because we’re meant for each other-”

Darcy shook her head, trying to back away. Bucky’s hands gripped her shoulders, holding her still.

“We are. I know it. And I know you know it. Stop fighting, please…”

“Bucky. I can’t-”

“You can. Darce, you _can._ Stay with me,” he beseeched.

“Bucky, I _can’t_! Pip is sick-”

“You don’t know that for sure-”

“What if he’s dying!” she shouted, wrenching away from Bucky and hurrying over to the couch, carefully placing Pip in her pocket. “I have to go back. To my world. That’s where I’m meant to be.” The last sentence didn’t sound as firm as she’d intended.

Bucky’s expression was carefully blank. “You’re meant to be with me,” he said simply. The way you might say ‘the sky is blue.’

Darcy stared at him for a moment, lip wobbling, before turning and running from his flat.

She hurried down the corridor to her own room, staring pointedly at the floor so that no one would engage with her. She pulled her curtains closed with a snap and dropped onto her bed, finally letting the tears come.

She’d thought Bucky understood… but then, how could he? He didn’t have a dæmon. He knew that she loved Pip, and that he was important to her, but the fact was Bucky could never understand the relationship between a human and their dæmon, any more than Darcy could understand the stock Bucky put in his soulmark. Pip was part of her existence; she couldn’t live without him. She and Bucky were never really going to understand each other, she realised with a heavy heart. There was no comparison: Darcy couldn’t live without Pip, but Bucky could live without her.

Couldn’t he? He already had, for almost a hundred years. She had to believe that he’d be alright without her.

_But will I be alright without him?_

That was the million-dollar question. Darcy fell asleep wishing she knew the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe how close we are to the end! Only 2 chapters to go. This is a pretty angsty chapter...but so is the next one! Poor Darcy and Bucky.
> 
> Thanks so much for the great feedback. I've so enjoyed reading everyone's in depth theories and analyses in the comments :D


	6. Part the Sixth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating a day early because it's my birthday and I'm off on holiday tomorrow, yippee!
> 
> Tissues at the ready...

Darcy wasn’t at all surprised to open her door the next morning and find a contrite Bucky standing there, looking as though he’d had as lousy a night’s sleep as she had.

“Can we talk?” He asked softly, his eyes searching hers, for what she couldn’t say.

Darcy sighed, stepping back to let him come in.

No sooner had she shut the door than Bucky was tentatively reaching for her hands. It was a rare occasion that he actually touched her with the prosthetic, and she was frankly too taken aback to even consider pulling away. The metal was just cooler than body temperature, smooth and unyielding where his flesh hand was calloused and warm.

“Darcy, I’m sorry,” he began, purposefully looking her in the eyes. “I was a total bastard last night. A _selfish_ bastard, and I took my feelings out on you. I shouldn’t’ve done that. I know you have enough on your plate without me adding to it.”

Maybe she should’ve been irritated with him, but she knew that she had no right to be. Yes, Bucky had said some pretty selfish things the night previous, but Darcy knew that her imminent departure was crushing him. Frankly, she was amazed that he hadn’t had an outburst sooner.

“I forgive you,” she replied, meaning it 100%. Bucky sighed with relief, a small smile on his lips.

“Yeah?”

She leant up on the tips of her toes, pecking his lips. “Yeah.”

Bucky wrapped an arm around her shoulder, cupping the back of her head as he pulled her into a hug. The comfort that she felt when his arms were around her was still frightening…because she loved it so much, and soon she’d have to learn how to live without it.

“I’m sorry, too,” she whispered. Bucky made a noise of protest, but she just hugged him tighter, and continued with what she had to say: “I’m sorry that I’m hell-bent on leaving you. I’m sorry that this isn’t the soulbond you always dreamed of. I’m sorry that I’m making you sad,” she concluded, her voice wavering.

Bucky buried his face in her hair, slowly breathing her in. “You’re not doing anything, Darce. This is…just how it’s supposed to go, I guess.” He didn’t sound totally convinced of that, but she didn’t say anything.

Like everyone in this parallel universe, he’d been raised to believe that a soulmark guaranteed true love and a happy ever after. But because she was from another dimension, he wasn’t going to get those things, and it hurt Darcy because she _knew_ Bucky deserved every good thing the world had to offer.

An idea popped into her head. “Maybe…when I go, the _me_ who belongs to this world will be your soulmate?” she suggested, her voice so quiet because she felt bad even suggesting it.

Bucky stiffened in her hold. Darcy swallowed as he pulled away from her. She’d crossed a line.

He cupped her face in his hands, staring at her intently.

“You listen to me Darcy Lewis of Dæmonland-” she giggled through the tears- “ _You_ are my soulmate. No one else. Not even someone who wears your face. I’m sure the Darcy Lewis of this world is great…but she ain’t you.”

Darcy bit her lip, not really knowing what to say. She knew what she _wanted_ to say, but it seemed almost cruel, given her determination to abandon him.

“You’re my soulmate, too. I’ll never have another,” she promised, managing to smile at him. Bucky’s eyelids fluttered, and she knew he was blinking back tears just like her.

“Glad to hear it,” he murmured, sealing it with a kiss.

When they eventually broke apart, Bucky grinned at her. “It’s a gorgeous day. Wanna go for a walk?”

Darcy smiled, setting a still-snoozing Pip in her pocket, and twined her fingers with Bucky’s as they walked out the door.

 

*****

 

The day came much sooner than she’d expected. Darcy had been trawling through a huge report from the FBI citing a whole bunch of bureaucratic nonsense about ‘jurisdiction’ on the last mission the Avengers had conducted in Oregon. Apparently, they’d stepped on the toes of the organisation, who had been covertly monitoring the AIM base for six months when Steve and Co. busted up in the place and left it a smoking ruin.

In Cap’s defence, he handed all of the scientists over to the feds for arrest, as required, but he’d used a connection (re: Sharon Carter) at the CIA to request clean up from them instead of the FBI.

As Darcy was tartly pointing out in a return email, the bureaucratic slime-pit that was the US intelligence service meant that Cap had had no idea the FBI were monitoring the base. Perhaps if they’d shared some of their info with the Avengers, it would’ve gone down differently. She kind of loved this part of the job: laying down the law to snooty agents who thought they could give the Avengers grief for saving the world.

She was just getting into the swing of her rightful indignation when her office phone rang.

“Darcy?”

“Um, hi Jane,” Darcy replied, genuinely surprised that it wasn’t Hill. To date, Hill had been the only person to ever call her office phone.

“We think it’s ready!” Jane cried, delight evident in every syllable.

Darcy felt a flare iciness run through her, but she didn’t know if it was excitement or terror.

Jane and Stark had been working intensively for almost two weeks on the machine that was supposed to send her home. They had invited her to visit the lab on several occasions, but the frank matter was that the stuff they were doing was so far beyond her comprehension that it hardly seemed real.

They were actually going to send her home. To another dimension.

“Oh my god,” she said, hardly knowing what else there was to say.

“I know! It’s so exciting! We still want to run a couple of simulations, but it’s looking really promising! Do you want to come by this evening?”

Darcy’s mouth was very, very dry. “Do you…will it work? Tonight?”

Jane was only half listening to her. The phone fistled, and Darcy could hear her whispering fiercely to someone.

“Jane?”

“What? Yes! We really think we’ve got it, at last!”

“Okay. Thanks, Jane. I’ll…I’ll see you later.” She hung up before Jane could respond, immediately feeling like a rude bitch.

Darcy pressed her hands to her mouth, letting out a big sigh instead of the scream that she’d wanted to unleash.

She glanced down at Pip, who was sleeping on her lap. The poor little thing had been virtually comatose for days, and with each one that passed, Darcy got more and more nervous about what was going to happen to him.

Even if she was having second thoughts about leaving…she had to, for Pip.

“For Pip,” she muttered to herself, tenderly stroking his back as she typed up the rest of her response to the FBI one-handed.

 

*****

 

Part of her didn’t want to say anything to Bucky, but Darcy knew that she couldn’t sneak off to Jane’s lab without telling him.

She couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.

When he showed up at her office door at 4pm, he was smiling that beautiful, genuine smile that he rarely shared with anyone but her.

It hurt to know that she’d be killing that smile in just a few seconds.

She kissed Bucky distractedly, listening to his little tale about training with the Falcon that day. He had a hell of a bruise on his jaw, from where Sam had kicked him whilst flying away.

Bucky had laughed in the face of Darcy’s concern as she gently touched the bruised skin. It was such a dark purple that it almost looked black.

“So, how was your day, doll?” He asked, grabbing her hand and kissing the pulse point at her wrist.

Darcy mustered up a smile. “Mostly I was telling the FBI off for bitching about the Oregon mission.”

Bucky nodded, a wicked glint in his eye. “God help’em, getting a telling off from you,” he said.

“Haha,” Darcy muttered drily, “I’m terrifying, right enough.”

Bucky flashed that dimple at her. “You’re feisty. I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of you.”

Darcy snorted. “Even if you did, you’d be able to charm your way back into my good books pretty quickly,” she admitted. He looked pretty pleased at that.

She fiddled with a stray piece of her hair. “Um…Jane called, earlier. They think it’s ready.” Her voice was quiet, trying to soften the blow.

Bucky’s hand tightened against hers, but his face didn’t give much away. Darcy hated when he put that mask on, but it wasn’t like she _wanted_ to see him cry, either.

“Oh,” he breathed, eventually.

“Yeah.”

Bucky cleared his throat. “Uh, when…?”

“She said I could come by this evening.”

He looked away, the tendons in his jaw visibly clenching.

Darcy watched his chest rise and fall with focussed, deep breathes. “Didn’t think it’d be so soon,” he said, his eyes meeting hers.

“Me neither,” Darcy whispered, feeling the tell-tale sting of tears in her sinuses. Jane and Stark had been working non-stop for two weeks; it was hard to believe that they could build a portal to another dimension in such a short period of time, but then, they were geniuses.

“You’ll have dinner first, though, right?” Bucky asked. Darcy frowned, not exactly expecting the question.

“Sure.”

He smiled and stood up. “I’ll see you at mine, around 6?”

Darcy nodded.

Bucky ducked down to kiss her forehead, and she smiled at the feeling of his lips on her skin.

The rest of her working day passed in a haze, and Darcy felt a small pang as she shut down her computer for what might be the last time. Despite her initial fears, she had come to really love her job in this world- it perfectly balanced her political science degree with her fondness for computing and her love of looking after people. Stretching her supervision from just one rogue physicist to the entire Avengers squad had been easier than she thought, once she realised that most of them were basically kids in fancy costumes.

She ducked into her room on the way to Bucky’s, changing into a comfy pair of jeans and a blue flannel shirt. Pip, a sweet, sleepy little bundle, was transferred from one pocket to another. Even though he was still always with her, Darcy missed their chats.

When Bucky opened his door to greet her, Darcy let out a peal of laughter as she realised they were dressed almost identically: blue flannel shirt and faded jeans.

Bucky smirked, raising an eyebrow at her. “Bitch stole my look,” he remarked, taking her hand and pulling her into the living room.

“Are you calling me a bitch?” she teased, the laughter in her voice dying abruptly when she took in her surroundings.

All of the lights in the living area were out, replaced instead by several strategically-placed candles. The delicious smell of dinner drew her eyes over to the small table for two, which had a tiny vase with a pink Gerber daisy sitting in the centre.

Darcy bit her lip, looking up at Bucky. He was watching her intently, a soft smile on his handsome face.

“Is this all for me?”

Bucky made a show of looking around the room. “You see any other dames ‘round here?” he asked, cheekily.

Darcy jabbed at his ribs with her elbow, trying to hide her face because she knew that she looked like a sappy idiot.

“You really pushed the boat out,” she remarked, as Bucky led her over to the table and pulled her chair out for her.

“Yeah, well you deserve it, doll. I would’ve taken you out somewhere, but the nearest town is about two hours away,” he admitted, shrugging. Darcy didn’t mind; she’d much rather eat with him here than in some public restaurant.

Once he had her in situ, Bucky fetched the two steaming plates sitting on his kitchen island and placed one in front of Darcy with a flourish.

It was spaghetti, the same she’d had the very first night they ate dinner together. The day they first met.

She smiled at Bucky, who was busying himself with pouring wine for each of them. He was nervous, she could tell, but he was very good at hiding it. The soft light of the candles made him look even more gorgeous than usual, and Darcy stared at the angles of his face with greedy admiration.

He sat down, and immediately lifted his wine glass, tilting it towards her. “Here’s to you, sweetheart,” he said.

Darcy raised her own glass, gently clinking it against his. “And to you.”

Bucky winked. “Cheers.”

They didn’t say much as they ate, simply smiling whenever they made eye contact. The food was delicious, as always. Stark did not screw around when it came to hiring kitchen staff.

When Darcy eventually pushed her plate away with a sigh, Bucky smirked. “Mind if I finish that off?”

He’d cleared his enormous plate almost five minutes ago. Darcy didn’t know where he put the food- he was all lean muscle, not a shred of fat to be seen.

“Go for it,” she sighed, patting her full belly happily.

When Bucky was finally full (at least temporarily), they shucked their dirty dishes in his sink, and settled down on the couch.

Darcy was expecting Bucky to turn on the TV- they’d spent many an evening working through his Netflix queue- but instead he just slung his arm around her shoulders, inviting her to tuck in against his side, which she duly did. She could feel Bucky stroking static strands of her hair, and he unabashedly pressed his face to the crown of her head, breathing in the smell of her shampoo.

It was so blissfully comfortable that after a few minutes Darcy began to feel her eyelids drooping. Between her full belly, Bucky’s warmth and the dim lighting, it was turning into the perfect napping opportunity.

As if reading her mind, Bucky stirred. “I, uh…” he coughed, clearly embarrassed. Darcy sat up, raising her eyebrows at him.

“I got somethin’ for you,” he said, leaning over the armrest and coming up with a long jewellery box.

Darcy’s mouth dropped open. He’d bought her _jewellery?_  “Bucky…”

He obviously heard the trepidation in her tone, because he smiled ruefully. “Ain’t a big thing. Just a little token,” he promised, handing the box to her.

Darcy’s fingers fumbled a bit as she opened it. Bucky’s gaze was heavy on her face.

Lying on a bed of dark fabric was a fine silver bracelet, and all along the length of it were small, perfectly painted enamel daisies.

“A real daisy chain,” Bucky said, when she had stared at it in silence for too long. “I know the other ones don’t last too long.”

Frankly, Darcy could barely see the bracelet. Her eyes were swimming with tears that blurred everything; she swallowed, blinking furiously to try and get rid of them.

“Bucky. It’s beautiful,” she said, before promptly bursting into floods of tears.

Bucky gently took the box from her hands, laying it on the coffee table. “No, sweetheart. Don’t cry,” he murmured, pulling her into his lap and wrapping his big arms around her. Her fingers gripped his shirt tightly, and she sobbed into the dip of his shoulder as he rocked her gently, making little soothing sounds until her sobs trailed off.

Darcy sat back, rubbing at her eyes before looking at Bucky properly. His own eyes looked reddish, but it was hard to tell in the dim lighting. “I love you,” she blurted out. She knew it wasn’t fair to say that right before leaving him forever, but…she couldn’t keep it bottled up anymore.

Bucky let out a bright, happy laugh. “Darcy, you gotta know I love you too.”

His hands were a heavy weight on her hips, holding her steady as she leant down to kiss him. The kiss was slow and languorous, like they were both trying to savour it as much as possible. For her part, Darcy was doing her best to commit to memory every sensory detail about Bucky that she possibly could: the taste of his tongue, the softness of his hair between her fingers, the colour of his eyes, the sound of his voice. It frightened her to think that one day she  might not remember those little details that made him… _him._

“I didn’t get anything for you,” she murmured against his lips. She felt incredibly guilty- it hadn’t even occurred to her to get him a memento.

Bucky chuckled lowly, the sound reverberating into Darcy’s chest. “Don’t worry about it, doll,” he whispered, gently stroking the side of her neck with his flesh hand. He never touched her there with his prosthetic because he was worried about the plates tangling with her necklace or her hair.

“Oh!” she cried, shifting back on his lap and pushing his hand away.

“Darcy, what?”

She fiddled irritably with the tiny clasp on her necklace, letting out a little crow of triumph when it came loose.

“Here,” she said, coiling the long chain and the key charm before setting them in the palm of his hand.

Bucky looked from the necklace to her, mouth slightly open.

Darcy tucked her hair behind her ears. “I mean, it’s probably a little girly. I’m not expecting you to wear it-”

Bucky carefully held up the ends of the necklace. “Will you put it on for me? Don’t reckon I could work the clasp,” he said, smiling.

Darcy smiled too, reaching for the fine chain and patiently laying it around Bucky’s neck. The chain had always been pretty long on her, so thankfully the key charm sat perfectly on Bucky’s clavicles instead of choking him.

“Looks good on you.”

Bucky grinned. “Thanks, doll. I promise I’ll take good care of it.” He reached up and touched the key reverently with his fingertips.

He reached for the jewellery box again, lifting the bracelet from its bed and holding it up for her with a raised brow.

Considering for just a moment, Darcy held out her right arm. She didn’t have Bucky’s words there, but at least the bracelet would mean she was connected to him, if only in a small way.

Bucky carefully turned her wrist in his hand, expertly fixing the ball clasp into place.

“Say it again,” he murmured, looking up at her through his lashes.

“What?”

He smiled. “Say you love me.”

Darcy leant down, kissing his lips softly. “Bucky Barnes, I love you.”

“And I love you, Darcy Lewis.”

Before things could go any farther, Pip shifted in her pocket. Darcy gently scooped him out, holding him in her palm.

“He still not well?” Bucky asked, looking at the little ball of fur with concern.

Darcy sighed. “No. He’s been asleep for four days solid now. I know I used to joke about him being lazy, but…”

“This is something else,” Bucky finished, compassion in his gaze.

Darcy nodded, staring miserably at her beloved daemon.

Bucky reached down slowly, tenderly stroking Pip’s fur with his fingertip. Darcy’s breath caught in her throat. Pip stirred lightly, his forepaws coming up to grip Bucky’s finger, while his tail wrapped around Bucky’s wrist.

Feeling Bucky touch Pip was…strange, but in a good way. Every part of Darcy’s body lit up like a Christmas tree. She knew instinctively that there wasn’t a part of her that wasn’t marked by Bucky, now. It felt right.

Bucky smiled at Pip, completely oblivious to the effect he was having on Darcy.

“Poor Pip,” he murmured, continuing to pet Pip’s belly until he went limp with deep sleep again.

Darcy must’ve looked completely poleaxed, because Bucky did a double-take when he looked up at her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Uh…people don’t usually touch other people’s daemons. It’s kind of a taboo,” she admitted, her voice rough.

Bucky’s teeth sank into his bottom lip. “Sorry, doll. I didn’t realise.”

Darcy reached out, laying her hand on the side of his neck. The chain of the necklace was warm to the touch. “No, it’s okay. It didn’t feel bad, it just…no one’s ever done that, before.”

 _And no one else ever will,_ she thought.

He stilled looked guilty so Darcy kissed his nose. He had a really cute, kissable nose. “Honestly, it was…nice. But only because it was you,” she admitted shyly. There was no point in trying to explain what the sensation was like to Bucky. He kind of already knew, anyway. He’d told her the way he felt when she said his words, and Darcy imagined that it was just like that.

There had been some sort of mingling between their _souls_ , or whatever other word you wanted to use for that sort of thing.

Darcy stared into Bucky’s fabulous blue eyes and felt like a part of her was dying.

“I should probably…” she trailed off, shaking her head. Bucky pasted a smile onto his face, even though his jaw strained from the effort.

“Let’s go, doll,” he said, helping her up and immediately taking her hand in his.

As they walked towards Jane’s lab, Darcy was reminded of that awful feeling at the airport, when you’re walking up to security with a friend or relative who you’re leaving behind, and you both walk in silence, or maybe try to chatter about nothing, but you’re both very aware that you’re walking towards a place where you’ll have to say goodbye.

Darcy didn’t dare look up at Bucky’s face. She was already struggling to keep it together. She just gripped his hand tighter, memorising the feel of it against her own.

“Darcy!” Jane bounded several feet out of the lab, looking for all the world like an over-eager spaniel puppy.

“Hi, Jane.”

“I think we’ve really got it,” Jane said excitedly, completely oblivious to the turmoil Bucky and Darcy were going through. It wasn’t that Jane was heartless (at least, the Jane that Darcy knew and loved certainly wasn’t), she could just be a bit oblivious to other human beings when she was in the throes of a scientific triumph. “I just couldn’t stabilise the quantum tunnelling, but then Tony suggested-” Darcy checked out of the conversation after that. She hadn’t a notion what Jane was saying.

Bucky nudged her gently, sharing a look of amusement behind Jane’s back. It was ironic, because Darcy knew that Bucky _did_ understand a lot of what Jane was saying. One evening in his flat, she had gone through his bookcase while he fetched dinner, and she had been charmed to find several tome-like Physics textbooks (one written by Dr Jane Foster, Nobel laureate), clearly well thumbed-through and covered with notes in Bucky’s beautiful, precise handwriting.

His passion for science, his curiosity about the world (or, worlds) just made her love him even more.

Darcy felt a sob rise in her throat. She struggled to fight it down for several seconds, blinking furiously to keep the tears back.

What was she _doing?_ Leaving a man whom she loved? A man whom she loved with an intensity that she’d never believed herself capable of?

She shut her eyes, forcefully reminding her fickle brain why this was how it _had_ to be.

Reason #1: Pip was sick. Stark and Jane had no clue as to why, but they all agreed that her daemon was fading fast. If she stayed here, Pip would die, and with him, a part of her would go, too. People didn’t live without their daemons. She knew that.

 _But do they live without their soulmates?_ Her traitorous mind asked. She glanced at Bucky, not wanting to know the answer.

Reason  #2: Her mom was dead. If Darcy stayed here, she’d never get to talk to her Mom ever again. She’d never eat one of her Mom’s world-class pavlovas, or hear her rant about the disinterested, idiotic parents of her pupils. She’d never send another Mother’s Day card, or buy that Chanel perfume that her Mom had been receiving every Christmas since 1987. She wouldn’t have a Mom.

Reason #3: Jane wasn’t her best friend. Darcy was sure that if she remained here, she could strike up a friendship with this Jane, but it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be a friendship borne of sipping tequila on a lab roof in New Mexico, watching the stars. It wouldn’t be a friendship built on driving into a damn storm and running down the God of Thunder. It wouldn’t be a friendship borne of consoling each other after the jack-booted thugs of SHIELD stole their shit. It wouldn’t be _their_ friendship, the one Darcy had cultivated with her Jane for over five years.

_I have to do this._

That revelation should’ve made the whole process easier.

But it didn’t.

By the time Jane and Stark had set her up on the Launchpad of the machine, Darcy’s face was wet with tears. Bucky was standing on the other side of the room, his hands clenched by his sides and his face pale with grief because Jane and Stark had (sympathetically) decreed a twenty foot radius of safety around where she was standing.

She could feel the burn of Bucky’s lips against her own; the last kiss he’d given her not three minutes ago.

She could hear his last words to her, the sorrow in his voice. The determination. “Darcy, remember that I love you.”

And then she couldn’t feel or hear anything.

She couldn’t see a thing.

Maybe that was for the best.

 

*****

 

“Darcy? Darcy.”

She woke up to the sound of Jane’s voice. For a split second, Darcy thought that the machine hadn’t worked, that she was still in the wrong world.

When she cracked open her eyes and saw Jane leaning over her with her owl-daemon Aristotle on her shoulder, Darcy was only a little ashamed to feel disappointed.

It had actually worked.

Jane was shaking her arm gently. “Darcy? Are you alright?”

She was lying on the floor of a lab- an unfamiliar lab. It was big and shiny, and she could see the endless blue sky from the dozens of windows lining it.

“Where’re we?” Darcy muttered, tongue thick in her mouth.

Jane smiled. “You’re home.”

Darcy’s chest seized. _No, I’m not._

Before her misery could run away with her, she felt Pip shuffling his way out of her pocket. She looked down into his fabulous black eyes, a swell of love washing over her at seeing him awake and well again.

“Darcy,” he hummed, pressing himself tight against her chest. She reached a clumsy hand up to hold him there, the flutter of his heartbeat a comfort, as always.

“It worked,” she said, half question, half statement.

Jane grinned, nodding her head enthusiastically. “Yeah. We weren’t sure that we’d nailed the coordinates, but-”

“But this isn’t my first rodeo when it comes to inter-dimensional travel, so we figured it out alright,” interjected a brash male voice.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Darcy muttered, craning her head around to get a good look. Sure enough, there was Tony Stark, leaning against a messy workbench, looking supremely proud of himself and arrogant in the way he was famous for. His daemon watched Darcy with unabashed interest, though.

“What?” Oh, oops. Jane had heard her.

Darcy shook her head, sitting up straighter against the table leg. “You were trying to get me back?”

Jane’s brow furrowed. “Of course! How else did you think you got here?”

“Lemme guess. There was another Jane Foster where you were, and she set up an experiment to send you back here. The two portals linked up, and _voila_ ,” Stark said, tossing a wrench in the air for emphasis.

Damn, he _was_ clever.

“Pretty much. You were there, too. Or, at least, another Tony Stark.” He looked pleased at that. Jane looked a bit put out, at first, but her natural scientific obsession won out.

“ _Oh!_ That would explain the power surge! It had never happened in any of the simulations we’d run, but if someone on the other side was opening an astral portal when we _were-_ ” Jane’s eyes were practically glowing with enlightenment.

Darcy’s brain wasn’t exactly on point, so it took her a few seconds to compute what Tony Stark had just said about ‘another’ Jane.

“Was there another me, here?” Darcy demanded. Jane abruptly stopped babbling, and glanced at Stark.

“Yes. We think it was some sort of mimesis, that the two of you swapped-”

“Did she have a silver tattoo on her right arm?”

Jane stared at her mutely.

Darcy turned her attention to Stark.

“Yeah. Some writing,” he supplied, eyebrows raised. She knew she was behaving like a crazy person, but she didn’t care.

“What did it say?”

Jane placed a hand on her shoulder. “Darcy-”

“ _What did it say?_ ”

Stark shrugged unhelpfully, but his black eagle daemon cocked her head at Darcy and answered: “I didn’t read it in full. She often kept it covered. But the first two words were _Are you_.”

Darcy swallowed. She’d hoped that knowing something about the ‘other’ Darcy’s soulmark would’ve told her…whether or not the girl was going to become Bucky’s soulmate (God, it hurt even to _think_ it). From what Stark’s daemon had said, it could be. She’d obviously never met Bucky before, so maybe she would also say to him “Then I promise I’ll only call you James if you’re in trouble,” and then Bucky would be with the person he was supposed-

Her stomach roiled, and she doubled over trying to breathe through the nausea. Jane flapped around for a moment, before Stark pushed a bin in Darcy’s direction with his foot.

“Thanks,” Darcy muttered. Pip was perched on her shoulder, attempting to pull strands of hair away from her clammy forehead.

“It’s alright,” he soothed, his voice quiet so that only she could hear. Darcy felt a great swell of affection for him; she had almost lost him, and she was never going to take him for granted again.

Fuck, this _hurt_. Like someone was clawing out her insides just for the hell of it.

 _Welcome to heartbreak,_ she thought bitterly.

She could tell that Jane and Stark (though Jane moreso) were bursting to ask her questions, but she just couldn’t hack it. “Is there a bed or couch around here that I can crash on?” she asked, promising to herself that she’d tell them everything later.

Well, maybe not everything. The important sciencey stuff.  She wasn’t going to tell Stark about Bucky. She wasn’t even sure if she could tell Jane- not because she didn’t _want_ to, but because she didn’t think she could talk about him without being swallowed by grief.

Jane smiled, but it was sharp with concern. “Sure, Darce. We’re staying with Tony for a bit-”

Darcy looked around again. That was definitely a high-tech robot in the corner. Suddenly the boundless skyline made sense.

They were in Avengers Tower. She wanted to ask Jane what the hell was going on- why had she suddenly partnered up with _Tony Stark_ , of all people, Mr Accords himself?

But most of all, she wanted to sleep. Pip, sensing her mood, gave a little murmur of assent, his whiskers tickling against her neck. Darcy suspected he was going to be super clingy for the next while, and she was more than happy with that. She needed the comfort, too.

Jane helped her to her feet. Her head was aching, but at least she hadn’t hurt her back like the last time she’d attempted interdimensional travel.

Darcy paused in the doorway of the lab. “Uh, thanks,” she said, giving Stark a vague smile. He nodded, waving a hand at her nonchalantly as he poked and prodded at a piece of machinery. He’d already lost interest in her, it seemed.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jane asked, when they were well out of Stark’s hearing range. Thankfully, Jane called the elevator down, because Darcy doubted she’d be able to walk too far, and she knew that Avengers’ Tower was _huge._

“Yeah, just beat. Thanks, Janey,” she said, hugging her friend. Jane didn’t look totally convinced, but she smiled anyway.

After a speedy journey on the elevator, Jane opened the door to a large suite that was basically all windows. “Okay, this is us. Your room is through here…”

The bedroom was much the same as the living area, painfully modern and soulless, with huge windows. Frankly, Darcy didn’t care what the place looked like- she only had eyes for the comfy-looking double bed.

Much as she wanted to drop down on the mattress immediately, she knew a bathroom break was a must.

Jane hovered nervously at the door. “Oh, by the way, your Mom called about four days ago. I didn’t let…well, the other ‘you’ speak to her, but I think your Mom was suspicious, so maybe call her back asap?” she suggested. Darcy hated that Jane was tiptoeing around her, but she knew that it was her fault.

She thanked Jane again, keeping a tremulous smile in place until Jane departed, snapping the door shut behind her.

Darcy went into the bathroom to wash the dried tears and sweat from her face, and even _she_ recoiled at the half-dead eyes that stared back at her.

Pip watched her reflection anxiously, whiskers quivering. “It’ll get better. You’ll see,” he whispered.

Darcy didn’t know how he knew that.

And she didn’t believe him, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is still one chapter to go :D


	7. Part the Seventh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, your comments on the last chapter were **sensational** thank you so much! They were a lovely birthday gift :)
> 
> I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint. I know a lot of people weren't sure how a happy ending was going to work, and I honestly hadn't originally planned one, but I kind of fell in love with this love story, so...
> 
> Onwards!
> 
> (Please note this chapter contains borderline mature/ **explicit** content. If you don't wish to read this, stop at the line _'She laughed. “I don’t think he’ll be interrupting any time soon.”'_ , and then resume at the line break followed by _'On Monday morning...'_ )

The postcard came on a Tuesday. It was an innocuous thing, a generic image of a log cabin by a crystalline lake, the words ‘Visit Alberta’ emblazoned in the sky. Flipping it over, Darcy frowned down at the jumble of letters and numbers laid out in a single line.

“What?” she muttered, feeling a vague stirring of amusement as she noticed the address. Jane, in a lull between work, rolled her wheelie chair next to Darcy’s and peered over her shoulder, curious.

_Darcy Lewis_

_Assistant to Dr Jane Foster_

_C/O Tony Stark_

_Avengers Tower_

_New York City_

“Bet the mailman loved that,” Pip said, reading her mind.

“What does it even mean?” Darcy mused, looking at the line of jumbled letters and numbers again. There was something familiar about the handwriting, she thought. It wasn’t easy to tell when the letters were written in capitals.

“The stamp’s Canadian,” Jane’s daemon, Aristotle, pointed out. “I suspect it’s genuinely from Alberta.” Canada had been one of only a handful of UN members to protest the Sokovia Accords- their relationship with the US had been all but destroyed in the process.

Darcy snorted. “Yeah, but I don’t _know_ anyone who lives-” She sucked in a deep breath.

Jane and her daemon tilted their heads at her simultaneously. Darcy was aware that her breathing had accelerated.

“My Dad, in the parallel world, _he_ lived in Alberta.”

Jane looked at her sceptically. ”Do you think he sent it?” she asked, scrunching up her nose. It had been over seven months since Darcy had returned to her world, and Jane had never been able to replicate the malfunction that sent Darcy to the ‘soulmark universe’ (as Jane called it). It hadn’t been an easy time, either. The fallout of the Accords was starting to burn even Stark, and Jane’s interdimensional research had fallen onto General Ross’ radar a few months back, which had been a damn pity. Darcy had tried bringing up Ross’ connection to Dr Banner whenever Tony was around, but he never took the bait. Maybe it was too late in this world, trying to discredit a man famed for taming the rogue Avengers- or what was left of them. Cap’s Crew of Escaped Convicts were still AWOL, and it didn’t look like they were going to turn up any time soon.

Darcy’s heart was racing. She knew her hands were shaking because the writing on the postcard was blurring.

There had only been one person in that world who knew that her Dad lived in Alberta.

“Oh my God. It’s Bucky.” It felt like her heart was hammering against her ribcage.

Jane did a double-take. She had heard _all_ about Darcy’s love affair with Bucky over several tubs of Ben & Jerry’s and liberal amounts of tequila. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I mean…I don’t know who else it could be!”

Jane shook her head. “But _how?_ I’ve tried to mimic the conditions of the anomaly that sent you there about a thousand times and it won’t work!” She sounded pretty cheesed off.

Darcy just laughed. She felt lighter than she had in months. “I don’t know, boss lady. Oh my God, I can’t believe it…he’s here!”

Pip was bristling with excitement. “I bet that code will tell us exactly where he is!” He was as thrilled at the prospect of seeing Bucky as she was, and it made her smile.

“What if it’s a trap?” Jane’s daemon said, to the surprise of everyone.

Darcy looked up at Aristotle. “Why would it be a trap?”

He ruffled his feathers. “I’m not saying it is, but it could be. What if Ross found out about your interdimensional travel, and he’s trying to lure you away from the Tower?”

Darcy frowned. “But how would he have found out?”

“The servers here are pretty impregnable, but…not 100%. I’m sure a really talented hacker could get at my research,” Jane admitted, gnawing her chapped lips.

“Or they could do it the old-fashioned way,” Aristotle suggested. Darcy raised her eyebrows. “Plant a mole,” the tiny owl clarified.

Darcy flicked the postcard back and forth in her hands. “I’m almost certain this is Bucky’s handwriting. I’m not saying it’s impossible that it could be a trick, but…I don’t think it is. I mean, if Ross knew what had happened, he could just demand I come in for questioning, right?”

Jane nodded. “Yeah. The guy’s a snake, but this does seem a pretty convoluted way to get you alone.”

They all sat in silence for a few minutes.

“So we just have to figure out what the code means,” Pip said, still upbeat.

“Yeah. How hard could it be?” Darcy said.

The answer was: pretty frickin’ hard, actually.

Four and a half hours later, Darcy was lightly banging her forehead on her desk.

“We’ll figure it out,” Jane soothed, rubbing her back.

Darcy whimpered. “What if he’s only here for, like, another _day_ and I miss him because he had to use some ninja spy shit to confuse me?”

Jane hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe we could ask Tony-”

“No way, José,” Darcy retorted, sitting up abruptly. Stark didn’t know _anything_ about her inter-dimensional romance, and it had to stay that way. According to Jane, ‘this world’ Stark hated Bucky Barnes “with the fiery passion of a thousand suns” (her words). No way was Darcy lighting that match.

Jane tutted. “Why not? He might actually be able to crack it. He has military connections.”

“I don’t want to tell him about Bucky,” Darcy insisted.

“Then just say it’s from one of your old college professors who’s having a get together and has sent this as the invite because he’s super eccentric. Tony’ll want to figure it out if he knows even I’m stumped.”

Darcy and Pip shared a glance. “Alright,” she sighed.

 

*****

 

Tony Stark glanced at the postcard for approximately twenty seconds after Darcy ambushed him while he was en route to his lab and stuck it under his nose. She knew better than to try and hand him something.

“Do you know where it is? Jane couldn’t figure it out,” she said quickly, before he could get distracted and walk away. She had her ‘my quirky professor is having a shindig’ line prepped and ready.

But she didn’t need it.

“Yep, it’s the asshole of nowhere.”

Darcy grimaced. She had been  hoping for more specific information.

“Uhuh, well I sorta need to go there-”

“Friday, organise transportation for Lewis to these coordinates: 59°14’33”N 115°36’32”W,” Stark said airily, shrugging out of his (no doubt) ludicrously expensive suit jacket and tossing it on the floor as he strutted into his lab, his daemon following him with a long-suffering sigh.

“Will do, Boss,” the AI replied.

Darcy stared after him in a vague state of shock. Even after seven months of living in the Tower, she still wasn’t used to Tony’s hormonal fluctuations.

“Ass,” Pip muttered sulkily, before nestling down into her shirt pocket for a well-earned nap.

Darcy looked up at the ceiling as she headed for the elevators. “Um, Friday?”

“Yes, Miss Lewis?”

“Where exactly _are_ these coordinates?” Darcy asked.

“The coordinates refer to a large wilderness area situated in the Caribou Mountains of Alberta. A remote, boreal forest located approximately forty-three miles from the nearest hamlet, Fort Vermilion.”

Darcy grinned down at the postcard. “Cool.”

“Per the Boss’s instructions, I have selected a Stark Industries helicopter-”

Darcy winced. “Actually, Friday. I think I need to get to this place stealthily…it’s uh…my old professor’s having a shindig and he’s kind of a paranoid nutjob,” she explained, feeling really guilty for lying to the lovely AI.

There was a pause, silence in the elevator. Darcy could practically hear Friday strategizing an alternate option.

“Very well, Miss Lewis. I would suggest one of the small stealth-jets that Boss finished up last month. It is virtually silent, and invisible to the naked eye when in transit. I have located a suitable landing spot less than one mile from your intended destination. When do you wish to travel?”

Darcy had been nodding along to the AI’s info quite happily, exiting the elevator and reluctantly returning to her desk. Jane was sitting in the corner of the lab, a weird-looking gizmo in her hands, and her tongue sticking out with concentration.

“Just a second, Friday,” Darcy said, balling up a spare piece of paper and winging it at Jane. “Yo! Boss Lady! Tony figured out the coordinates. Can I take a long weekend to head to Alberta?”

Jane looked up distractedly. “Sure, Darce. Wait- when is the weekend?”

Darcy laughed. “Today is Wednesday. I’d go on Friday morning. Is that okay?”

Jane thought for a moment, then nodded, grinning. “Yeah. Go get some.”

Darcy elected to ignore that. “Friday, could I have transportation this, um, _Friday_ at…eight a.m.? Returning next Tuesday morning at the same time?”

“Of course Miss Lewis, I will make the necessary arrangements.”

Darcy was smiling so wide she thought her face might crack in half.

 

*****

 

Friday morning rolled around so quickly, and both Darcy and Pip were practically jumping with excitement as a kind SI pilot ushered them onto the fancy new stealth-jet. Ordinarily, Darcy was a cagey flyer, but knowing that Bucky- her Bucky- was on the other side of the journey made it completely bearable.

The flight only took an hour, and Darcy mentally blessed Tony Stark for his technical ingenuity.

The clearing that they were deposited in was beautiful, surrounded by miles of untouched woodland. Checking her bearings on her phone, Darcy set off in what she hoped was the right direction. It was a chilly October day, and she was glad that she had remembered to grab her padded coat before hopping aboard the StarkJet.

“It’s nice here,” Pip noted, from his warm spot in her hood.

Darcy nodded, looking up at the canopy of trees overhead. Most of them had already begun to turn various shades of red, orange and yellow. Honestly, the place looked like something from a holiday brochure. “Sure is.”

Studiously watching the little map on her phone (a Stark Industries exclusive- this world Tony had finally entered the personal electronics game and made Apple cry) and keeping an eye out for any hidden rocks or tree roots, Darcy felt her anticipation ramp up as she got closer and closer to where Bucky (hopefully) was. Despite having the exact coordinates of Bucky’s location, she hadn’t dared send a return card telling him her ETA. Frankly, as she surveyed the literal _miles_ of forest all around her, she giggled at the thought of a determined mailman attempting to get here.

Frankly, it felt a bit surreal to be traipsing through a ginormous Canadian forest to meet up with her fugitive sort-of boyfriend who hailed from another dimension.

But Darcy was mostly fine with it. To be honest, her entire five years by Jane’s side had trained her for this sort of weirdness. Darcy had learned to just roll with it.

After scarcely ten minutes of walking (breaking into the occasional, half-hearted jog- she was excited!), she wove between two enormous trees and looked up to see a tiny log cabin not a hundred metres away. It was unbearably quaint, something you’d see in a calendar or tourism advert. There was even a spiral of smoke coming from the rickety brick chimney.

Darcy approached slowly, wary of taking Bucky by surprise. Sure, he was expecting her _at some point,_ but not necessarily today. She did not want to get on the wrong side of his sniper rifle.

She snorted to herself. That had sounded like a bad innuendo, even to her own mind.

“Are you laughing at your own thoughts, now?” Pip asked, his voice brimming with sarcasm. Honestly, living in close proximity to Tony Stark for the past seven months had only enhanced his innate sassiness.

Before Darcy could retort, a noise drew her attention back to the cabin. And then the door opened, and Bucky was standing there in jeans and a red flannel, looking like the hottest lumberjack who ever walked the face of the earth, and Darcy had to actively try _not_ to cry because she had missed him so much.

“Hi,” he breathed, his pale blue eyes wide.

“Hi. You cut your hair,” she blurted, in a desperate bid not to burst into tears. In all honesty, she wasn’t sure how she felt about the haircut. On the one hand, his long hair had been super shiny, and it had felt nice to run her fingers through it. On the other hand, this shorter style was really showing off his cheekbones and clean-shaven jawline to maximum advantage.

God, she’d forgotten how incredibly gorgeous he was.

“Uh, yeah. Figured it might draw a little less attention,” he admitted, self-consciously running his hand through his hair, mussing up the longer layers on top. She supposed that made sense- all of the press pictures of ‘The Winter Soldier’ (no one ever seemed to call him Sergeant Barnes or use photos of him from the War, these days) showed him with long, almost shoulder-length hair and scruff. Besides, long hair on guys was still unusual enough in this day and age that it would draw attention.

Darcy grinned, closing the space between them and wrapping her arms around his slim waist. “It looks really good.”

“Yeah?” There was that rogue dimple.

“Yeah,” Darcy confirmed, leaning up on tip toes to press her lips against his.

Bucky’s right hand sank into her hair, holding her mouth against his, while his bionic arm pinned her to his warm, chiselled chest.

 _Oh yeah,_ Darcy thought to herself, nipping at Bucky’s plush lower lip. She had _really_ missed this.

“Mmmm maybe we should move this inside,” he murmured after a few minutes. It _was_ pretty cold out.

Darcy laughed softly. “Okay.” Bucky lifted her rucksack like it weighed nothing, and led her into the living area. The room was quaint and homey, basically the kind of thing you’d expect from a bona fide log cabin: a red couch, a big sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace and a comfy-looking armchair.

“Cosy,” Pip noted, making a beeline for the soft-looking rug by the fire.

Darcy tugged off her coat and turned to find Bucky standing in the doorway, watching her with a disbelieving expression that she suspected was evident on her own face.

She held out her hand, smiling, and he wasted no time in striding over and wrapping her up in his big arms. Darcy squeezed him back, unabashedly burying her face in his shirt and soaking up his unique smell.

“I missed you so much,” Bucky murmured into the crown of her hair. Darcy grinned against his chest.

“I missed you so much, too,” she said.

“ _Ahem_ ,” Pip cleared his throat.

Bucky laughed, shaking his head. “I missed you as well, Pip.”

“Obviously,” Pip replied, waving his tail for a moment before burying further into the sheep-skin.

Still laughing, Bucky led Darcy over to the couch, holding onto her hand so that she had to sit right next to him.

It wasn’t exactly a hardship for her.

“How are you even _here?_ ” she asked, dying to know.

Bucky chuckled, playing with the fingers of her left hand. “It’s sorta complicated. Stark and Dr Foster helped me out, though.”

“But how did you actually travel here? Like, you didn’t swap with the Bucky Barnes from this world, did you?” That sounded like it would be a disaster. It wasn’t common knowledge where the Bucky Barnes of this world was, but Darcy’s hacker community had found intel from the CIA that a highly-advanced bionic arm had been discovered at an old HYDRA base in Siberia where Stark and Zemo were waiting for pick up. The official, public-friendly story was that Stark had hunted down Zemo after discovering that he had been responsible for the UN bombing. Sadly, instead of exonerating Bucky Barnes for the bombing, the CIA found enormous reels of footage cataloguing many of the Winter Soldier’s victims over the decades, including Howard and Maria Stark. Barnes was now wanted for over forty murder charges. Good thing he was still in the wind.

He shook his head. “No. After you left, Dr Foster started working on how to establish a more concrete transfer that wouldn’t involve ‘swapping’. It’s all pretty complicated, and in the end I think it only worked because we had a connection.”

Darcy squinted at him. “What kind of connection?”

There was a light blush on Bucky’s cheekbones, and he wasn’t looking directly at her. “Well, in _my_ world, when two soulmates fall in love it completes, you know…the soulbond. That’s how I knew when you were upset, right? So Dr Foster used that to establish a connection between us, and then she used this as my anchor,” he said, reaching into the open top of his shirt and pulling out the necklace Darcy had given him.

“Your anchor?” Darcy’s voice sounded oddly high-pitched.

“Yeah. It’s a tangible connection between the two worlds, and us. The bracelet I gave you acts as part of it, too.” She was wearing it, of course; she had worn it every day since she returned to this world, and every morning she put it on, she’d thought of Bucky and how much she missed him.

Darcy was flabbergasted. “Wow- but _wait…_ why was Jane just making this experiment for you?”

Bucky scratched the back of his neck. “I may have had a meltdown before you left, and I begged her to come up with some way for us to see each other again.”

Darcy bit her lip. That was too sweet.

“You’re cute,” she told him.

Bucky’s cheeks were still a little pink, but he grinned cheekily. “Yeah?”

Darcy grinned. “Yeah,” she assured him, shifting so that she was no longer pressed up against Bucky’s side, but essentially lying on top of him.

So sue her. He was warm and comfy, and he smelled amazing.

Bucky leant back into the couch cushions, seamlessly adapting to the additional hundred-plus pounds she’d just dumped on him. Ordinarily, Darcy would’ve been self-conscious about lying on top of a guy, but from the contented look on Bucky’s face, she could tell he was absolutely fine with it.

Which was just as well, because she didn’t plan on moving any time soon.

She had him back, and she wasn’t letting him go.

Although…

Darcy grimaced, hating the turn her thoughts had taken. Her heart started hammering. “Did you meet her?” she asked, softly.

Bucky’s eyes locked with hers.

“Yeah. She was there, as soon as you left,” he chuckled lightly, “It was weird.”

“Did she…say them?”

Bucky twined his fingers through her hair, pulling her closer so that he could kiss her forehead. “No. I told you. You’re my soulmate. No one else.”

Darcy felt all the stress and worry of the past seven months leach out of her with one breath.

“Wow. I just…” she swallowed, pressing her cheek against his. “I’m so relieved. I was scared that she’d say them, and you’d say hers…”

“You have my heart, Darce,” Bucky murmured. At the deep timbre of his voice, Darcy allowed her whole body to relax and just sink into him.

This was where she was supposed to be: in Bucky’s arms.

“And you have mine,” she promised, kissing the dip of his clavicles.

Bucky sighed happily. “I gotta be honest, Darce. I’m not here permanently. It’s gonna be a lot of back and forth, for a while,” he admitted.

Darcy couldn’t help but feel disappointed, but she figured that if staying in another dimension for a long period of time had affected her, then it would probably be the same for Bucky.

“As long as you keep coming back,” she whispered.

“I promise.”

They lay there in comfortable silence for a long time. Pip had clearly dozed off, no doubt charmed by the warmth of the fire burning in the grate.

“I wanted to ask you…” Darcy hesitated. It was something she'd been thinking about for months, but she felt shy about saying it out loud. Bucky opened his eyes and tilted his head down, raising a brow at her. “Would you be okay with me getting your first words tattooed on my arm?”

Bucky’s mouth dropped open, and from her vantage point Darcy could see his pupils dilating.

“Are you serious?” He breathed, his gaze probing.

“Yeah. I mean, I know it’s not _the same_ , but-”

Bucky’s lips descended on hers, cutting off her words. “Yes, Darce. _Yes._ I want my words on your skin,” Bucky said urgently, his teeth nipping at her lips. His bionic hand pressed in just above her ass, and Darcy purposefully shifted herself up the long length of his body so that he’d get the hint.

Darcy giggled when he grabbed a handful of her generous ass. She felt Bucky’s lips curve into a smile against hers.

“I think you like that idea,” she whispered, her nose bumping his in little eskimo kisses.

“I don’t like it, doll, I fuckin’ _love_ it,” Bucky all but growled.

Hearing Bucky swear was apparently quite the turn on, because Darcy’s temperature rose and her hips starting rolling without her permission.

Bucky’s big hands caught them almost instantly, holding her in place before she could really get into a rhythm.

She may have pouted.

“You don’t want to?”

Bucky’s tongue rolled out, wetting his full bottom lip.

_So unfair._

“Darce, you have no idea how much I want to.”

She laughed, purposefully shifting her hips against the hard bulge in his jeans. “Oh, I think I do.”

Bucky still looked hesitant.

“What?”

He bit his lip. “What about Pip?” He said, lowly.

They both looked over at the rug in front of the fireplace. Pip was lying on the middle of it, flat on his back with his legs akimbo. Darcy was fairly sure that he was snoring lightly, too.

She laughed. “I don’t think he’ll be interrupting any time soon.”

Bucky grinned. “Well, in that case-” That was all the warning she had before his quick fingers were nimbly opening the buttons of her shirt, pushing it off her shoulders before she’d even caught up with the program.

“Eager, are we?” She teased, amused and delighted by the hungry look in Bucky’s eyes as he stared at her chest. The lacy hot pink bra and translucent white tank weren’t doing much to hide how impressive her girls really were- or how much she _really_ wanted this.

After helping Darcy pull off the tank, Bucky looked ready to bury his face in her boobs and go to town. It wouldn’t be the first time a guy had face planted in her tits.

To Bucky’s credit, he managed to rein himself in, settling for pressing a kiss to the swell of each breast.

“Doll, you’re so sexy. You sure you’re interested in me?” He asked coyly, peering up at her through those thick dark lashes.

Darcy snorted- very unsexily- and slid her hands into his hair. “Bucky, you’re the definition of sexy. I’ve seen you wearing nothing more than a towel, remember?” Darcy certainly remembered Towel Gate- it had gotten her through many a sad, lonely night.

Bucky chuckled. “Oh yeah, how could I forget? You looked like you wanted to eat me alive,” he said, nipping at her cleavage to illustrate his point.

“Hmmm I’d definitely be _down_ for getting my mouth on you tonight,” she admitted, smirking as he swallowed loudly at her blatant innuendo.

“Whatever you want, doll. I’m yours to do with as you please,” Bucky told her, leaning back and lying flat on the couch, his hands behind his head. It looked like his biceps were going to bust through the sleeves of his flannel at any second.

Chewing her lip as she considered her options, Darcy sat up, running the palm of her hands down his long torso. It was like a manly buffet had just been laid out before her, and her sex-starved mind barely knew what to do with it.

 _First things first. Get those damn clothes off,_ she reasoned.

Bucky wasn’t wearing anything under his shirt, so as Darcy undid each button she took her time caressing every inch of new skin, sometimes leaning down to press a kiss there, too. Bucky’s abs and pecs were as impressive as her filthy mind remembered, and once she had wrangled the shirt down his fabulous arms and tossed it on the floor, she set about tracing those muscles- with her tongue.

She was charmed when Bucky groaned loudly in response to her licking one of his nipples. Some guys weren’t particularly sensitive there, but she quickly learned that Bucky _really_ was.

When Darcy descended to his abs, Bucky’s moans quietened down, but that was okay. The ab-licking was really a selfish fantasy of hers, but she still wrung a few pleasured shivers out of him, particularly when her tongue wandered south and traced the defined Adonis belt just above the waistband of his jeans.

She was on her hands and knees at this point, and when she looked up to meet Bucky’s heated gaze, she knew he was getting a prime view of her gorgeous pink bra desperately trying to contain her boobs.

Giggling, she deftly unbuttoned his jeans, easing them off his narrow hips and thick thighs.

Damn, she had forgotten how stellar his thighs were. Although the sight of his swollen cock lying against his stomach kind of took up most of her attention.

After quickly working the jeans off his ankles, Darcy quirked a brow at Bucky. “The Howling Commando goes commando?” she teased.

Bucky’s chest vibrated with laughter. “It’s laundry day, and I’m a bit short in the underwear department.”

He certainly wasn’t short in any other department. Darcy tossed her braided hair over her shoulder, leaning down to blow lightly on his dick, just to see him twitch.

At this point, Darcy had been experiencing a dry spell of over two years, but she had always prided herself on her ability to suck a man’s brain out through his cock.

And that’s exactly what she did to Bucky. After mercilessly teasing him with little kitten licks to the head, she fisted the base firmly and set to testing her gag reflex. It wasn’t half bad, considering Bucky’s size and her lack of recent practice.

She opened her eyes and looked up, feeling a swell of joy when she saw Bucky: his head was tilted back, his throat bobbing as the moans bubbled up it, his heaving chest flushed deep red with arousal. The noises coming out of his mouth were absolutely sinful. He had braced his bionic arm against the back of the couch, the fingers curled in a fist, but his flesh hand was gripping the edge of the couch so tight that Darcy was surprised he hadn’t ripped it yet.

Determined to drive him over the edge, Darcy pulled back for a moment and let her hand pick up the slack while she caught her breath again. Before Bucky could sit up to see what she was doing, Darcy swallowed him down again, guiding her left hand towards his perineum and rubbing it.

Bucky _howled,_ his back arching so much that Darcy was almost dislodged.

“Doll. _Darce_. I’m gonna come-” He warned, doing just what he said when Darcy only sucked him harder.

She wanted his taste on her tongue.

Wiping delicately at her mouth, Darcy was well aware that her lips were curled up in a big smirk. Bucky was still breathing heavily, his cheeks flushed and his bionic arm flung over his brow.

“Holy shit. You killed me,” he slurred.

“Ah, but what a way to go,” she replied, laughing. She leant up and kissed his chest, tasting the salt of his sweat and feeling the galloping beat of his heart beneath her lips.

Bucky laughed, the sound ragged from how much he’d been moaning. His eyes were dark with lingering arousal as he looked her up and down, literally _licking his lips._

“Think it’s my turn, now,” he murmured, gripping her hips tight and flipping them over in some stealthy ninja move that left Darcy lying breathlessly on the couch and Bucky kneeling on the floor between her feet.

“Um…don’t feel like you have to reciprocate,” she said, not really sounding too convincing.

Bucky quirked a brow at her, swiftly unbuttoning her jeggings and beginning the complicated ritual of peeling them off her legs.

“Doll, I’ve been dreaming about tasting you for goin’ on eight months, now. Humour me, yeah?”

Darcy could feel a flush rising on her cheeks as Bucky tossed her jeggings over his shoulder, his gaze latching onto her matching pink panties. She didn’t doubt that he could see a sizable wet patch.

Instead of going straight for her panties, he knelt up, deftly reaching for the clasp on her bra and removing it. His big hands were actually up to the task of containing her tits, which Darcy was deeply impressed by. The metal of his prosthetic took a bit of getting used to, but when she looked down at his hands touching her, his fingers nimbly caressing her nipples, she decided the contrast of silver and skin was kind of sexy.

“Eight…months?” She managed to gasp, her voice rising when Bucky suckled on a nipple while simultaneously running one knuckle up her centre. Even through her underwear it felt amazing.

Bucky peered up at her, his lips curled into a sinful smirk. “Yeah. Basically the first day I met you…mighta jerked off in the shower thinking about how sweet your lips would taste…both pairs of lips,” he added, winking in case she hadn’t understood what he meant.

Without waiting for a response, Bucky hooked a finger through the crotch of her panties and slowly dragged them off her hips. Darcy was kind of busy fantasising about Bucky getting himself off in the shower to thoughts of her, but she managed to lift her butt off the couch long enough to help him get those pesky panties out of the way.

She giggled shakily as Bucky lifted her legs to balance on his fabulously broad shoulders. Bucky’s eyes met hers, and he smiled adoringly up at her, tilting his head to place butterfly kisses on the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.

Darcy wouldn’t say that she had low self-esteem, but…her thighs were probably the least favourite part of her body. Too big, too pale, too jiggly. She had expected to feel embarrassed when Bucky started paying them attention- that’s how she’d always felt when guys got down there in the past- but between the reverent press of his lips and the softness of his gaze as he peered up at her through his lashes, Darcy couldn’t muster up even the slightest feeling of self-consciousness.

She was burning up!

Bucky went to town, burying his face in her pussy and doing whatever he could to make her moan. Which was a lot of things, but she particularly enjoyed when he licked her clit and curled two of his fingers up against her g-spot at the same time. That little move had her tugging on his hair and practically riding his face through her sensational orgasm.

Darcy had thought to apologise for basically smothering him, once she came back to her own body, but Bucky was still kneeling on the floor with a contented and dreamy smile on his wet lips.

“Everything you hoped for, Sarge?” She managed to gasp out, her ability to breathe having escaped her while Bucky ate her out.

Bucky literally licked his lips. She was too worn out to be surprised- but not too worn out to be kind of turned on by it.

“What dreams are made of, sweetheart,” he said, wiping at his mouth before resting his big hands on her knees and leaning up to kiss her. Darcy could taste herself on his tongue, but she found she didn’t mind it all that much.

“How do you want to do this?” Bucky murmured, his lips still bumping against hers.

“How about Reverse Cowgirl?” Darcy suggested, with a hint of mischief. He groaned quietly.

“Mmmm not this time, sweetheart. Want to see your face,” Bucky admitted.

Darcy thought for a moment. “I mean, doing it on the rug by the fireplace would’ve been nice, if it weren’t occupied,” she whispered, laughing softly along with Bucky. “Here is fine.”

Bucky didn’t look convinced, if the set of his eyebrows was anything to go by.

“What?”

He huffed, smirking slightly. “I’m not aiming for ‘fine’, Darce.”

Darcy giggled under her breath, coaxing Bucky to lean over her on the couch as she shimmied herself to lie down on it properly. “Location shouldn’t matter if you’re going to dazzle me with your moves.” Missionary might’ve been a standard, even boring position as far as some people were concerned, but Darcy had always rather liked the intimacy of it. Besides, she didn’t doubt that Bucky was going to blow her mind no matter what shape they were in. They had a whole weekend- they could experiment plenty later.

“Condoms,” she reminded.

Bucky nodded, immediately leaning over the side of the couch and coming up with a jumbo pack.

“For the record, this is not as romantic as the time you produced a jewellery box from beneath your couch,” she jibed, as he ripped open a condom wrapper.

“You’re hilarious,” he told her, voice dry as a bone.

“That’s why you love me,” Darcy declared cheerfully as Bucky carefully rolled on the condom. He glanced up at her, eyebrows raised.

“Is that right?”

“Yes. My amazing sense of humour, my sparkling wit, my incandescent beauty-” Darcy broke off from reciting her list, giggling as Bucky pinned her against the couch, playfully nipping at her throat.

“No arguments there, doll. You’re the most gorgeous dame I’ve ever seen,” he told her, delicately kissing her eyelids when she squirmed with pleasure and embarrassment at his compliment.

“Okay Mr Romance, time to get on with rocking my world,” she retorted, lifting her legs and hooking her ankles together at his lower back. She felt his cock grazing her inner thigh, but before she could complain about the slow service, Bucky reached down between them and guided himself inside her.

Darcy groaned when he was fully seated, stretching muscles that she’d almost forgotten existed during that two-year dry spell.

“Darce…uh…” Bucky’s breath puffed against the side of her neck, his hips twitching lightly as if he were desperate to start thrusting but was holding back for her sake.

Much as she appreciated his consideration, it was unnecessary. The stretch was a good kind of stretch. “Bucky... _move,_ ” she sighed, rolling her own hips encouragingly.

Bucky got the message loud and clear. He kissed her neck and leaned up on his elbows, slowly pulling out of her before thrusting back in with so much force that the couch shuddered beneath them.

“ _Oh_.” Darcy arched her back, reaching up to grip the armrest to hold herself steady and tilting her hips so that Bucky’s pelvis would rub against her with every movement. The combination of fullness and teasing brushes against her clit quickly had Darcy approaching a second orgasm.

Above her, Bucky’s face was flushed red with effort, little beads of sweat dotting his hairline, his eyes screwed shut as if the pleasure he was experiencing was almost too much.

“Bucky,” she murmured, removing her hands from the armrest and pressing them into the rippling muscles of his back.

His eyes popped open at her plea, the pale blue irises almost swallowed by his pupils. Knowing exactly what she was asking, Bucky reach back and hooked his bionic arm under her right knee, spreading her legs open wider so that he could thrust even deeper inside her.

That did it. A few beats later, Darcy was swallowed by the ecstasy of her orgasm, and she gasped out Bucky’s name. His eyes never left her face as his hips pounded into her faster, chasing his own release before he came with a deep groan and all but collapsed on top of her.

The cabin was suddenly blazing hot, silent but for the faint popping of the fire and the pair of them gasping for breath like dying fish.

Darcy grunted with a combination of relief and sadness as Bucky pulled out of her to take care of the condom. When he returned to the couch he scooped her up and laid down, allowing her to lie on him instead.

It was far too warm, and she was sweating like crazy, but Darcy didn’t give a damn.

Bucky’s fingertips skated up and down her spine. “That was definitely worth the trip,” he declared, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Darcy pressed her face to his chest, laughing until her stomach ached.

 

*****

 

On Monday morning, Darcy reluctantly heaved herself out of bed to contact Jane with the encrypted satphone Bucky had brought on his trip. Darcy wasn’t sure how her boss would respond to a request for more time off, but thankfully, Jane was in a good mood, and graciously gave Darcy the whole week.

That was all she needed, anyway- Bucky would have to leave on Friday. Going by Darcy’s own experiences in the other dimension and how it had effected Pip, the Jane of that world had decreed that Bucky could only safely spend two weeks in Darcy’s world before he would have to return home.

“But you don’t have a daemon. Maybe inter-dimensional travel isn’t a problem for you,” Darcy suggested, tracing patterns on Bucky’s bare chest. They had made it to the bed eventually, but apart from grabbing a quick bite to eat and taking necessary bathroom breaks, they honestly hadn’t done much more than have sex the entire weekend. Darcy’s body was starting to feel the burn, but she wasn’t about to complain, that was for sure.

Bucky smiled lazily down at her. “Maybe not. For now, Jane just wants to be cautious. I can start stretching the amount of time spent here. Test it out, y’know?”

Darcy nodded, her face pressed against his pec. She didn’t want to seem greedy, but a week with Bucky wasn’t long enough. They’d already agreed to work out future meetings in advance, so that Bucky wouldn’t have to waste some of his precious time getting in contact with Darcy and waiting for her to arrive. She had been curious as to how he knew she was living in Avengers Tower now, but it turned out that a celeb gossip rag had linked Tony with Jane after getting wind that Thor's ex had moved into the Tower. It was ridiculous ad hilarious, and Darcy had never been so grateful for shoddy journalism.

Darcy had also been stupefied to learn that Bucky had actually _bought_ the cabin they were currently defiling. He had made a sizable withdrawal from his bank account (“God bless Stark’s lawyers, they got me seventy years of back-pay _and_ compensation”) and after ‘landing’ in Alberta, had gone to a bar and overheard the owner of the cabin lamenting to his friends that he’d never get the damn thing sold. Bucky had paid cash after seeing the cabin, and the previous owner hadn’t asked any awkward questions about someone having that amount of money on hand.

“Actually…Jane and Stark reckon that we _do_ have daemons. They’re just invisible,” Bucky continued, his metal fingertips tracing the dips of her spine.

Darcy shifted against him. “Huh. How’d they figure that one out?”

“Well, it’s all theoretical at this point, but Jane noticed a weird signature of particles around you and Pip when you travelled back. She reckons that those particles are unique to daemons, so if she can locate them in people from our world…”

“She’ll find daemons,” Pip surmised from his position lounging on the windowsill.

Darcy looked up at Bucky, deeply amused by the excitement on his face. “Sounds like science-nerd heaven. You must love it.”

Bucky flinched his arm around her when she chuckled. “I kinda hung around the lab so long that Jane suggested I do a college degree online, and…then she offered me a job,” he admitted with a shrug, his ears pinking.

“What? What is it?”

He looked down, almost guiltily. “Um…as her assistant.”

Darcy exploded with laughter. “You stole my job!” she cried, grabbing a spare pillow and hitting him with it.

Before she could get in a second shot, Bucky snatched the pillow with one hand and banded his other arm around her waist, flipping them both over so that he was on top.

“I knew you’d say that,” he grinned, little strands of hair falling on his forehead. He really didn’t play fair, dazzling her with those eyes and that smile, and the little dimple in his chin. Damn him!

Darcy sighed, reaching up to brush the hair out of his blue eyes. “You are so gorgeous,” she told him, “And smart. I can’t believe you’ve signed yourself up for a physics degree!”

Bucky ducked his head, leaning down so his weight was on his elbows. He looked pretty bashful, which just made him even more attractive in Darcy’s eyes.

“I haven’t even done my first year exams, yet. We’ll see how smart I am, then,” he said, kissing her throat.

“Can’t believe I’m dating a college boy.”

Bucky snorted. “I’m about eighty years older than your average college ‘boy’, Darce.”

Darcy swatted his arm. “Don’t ruin my fantasy of dating a hot, younger man.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bucky replied, saluting her with a wink.

Darcy fell back against the pillows, laughing. Bucky watched with an indulgent smile on his face.

It took her a few minutes to calm down. “I’m really proud of you, Bucky,” she said, tracing the curve of his nose with her fingertip.

“That means everything to me, Darce.” He smiled at her. “I love you.”

“And I love you.”

 

*****

 

Less than a week after her rendezvous with Bucky, Darcy stepped out of the tattoo parlour in NYC with Pip hanging off her shoulder. The sun was shining, catching on the plastic wrap on her right arm, and she paused for a moment to let it all sink in as hundreds of people milled past her on the sidewalk. Their future wasn’t certain, but after almost a year of heartbreak, she finally had Bucky’s words on her skin, and they were head over heels in love.

It was a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And that's all she wrote!
> 
> 'She' is in the midst of writing a sequel, which will focus on the 'other' Darcy and Bucky, who were dreadfully neglected in this fic.
> 
> I had such fun writing this little story, and sharing it with you all was even better! Your comments and kudos are so deeply appreciated :D
> 
> Until next time! x


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